cudgel

Another was to give investors such as government pension funds a cudgel to pressure companies into reducing CO2 emissions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

The administration again turned to trade as a tool to achieve various aims and as a cudgel.

From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026

But some experts say such fees cannot be used as a cudgel to punish players that break a contract and transfer.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2025

Nor should it be used as a cudgel, like “The Little List” in “The Mikado.”

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 8, 2025

To let the world shape your desire and love into a cudgel with which to drive you back into a cave of fear.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

This scene emphasizes the film’s “savor every moment” theme that “We Live in Time” relentlessly cudgels viewers with for 108 endless minutes.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2024

Knowledge advances through the clash of ideas; the contrarian is often the herald of a new insight; labels such as “settled” and “consensus” are the cudgels of fundamentalists.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023

We all think differently now, so today there is no-one who will take up the cudgels for Matzneff.

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2020

Licenses do serve as legal cudgels to protect practitioners from competition.

From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2015

The knights of the Round Table were sent out as a measure against Fort Mayne, and the choleric barons who lived by Fort Mayne took the cudgels with the ferocity of despair.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

The action may not be as important as the message — that people deserved to be treated with respect and dignity — but that message is cudgeled into viewers.

From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2020

It is only with some remove that this array gives up its scatter graph specificity and can be cudgeled into a best fit line.

From Slate ● May 4, 2016

Exposition abounds, events that should be summarized drag out in tiresome scenes, what should be insinuated is instead cudgeled home.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2013

Holbrooke, having more or less imprisoned the delegations on the U.S. airbase at Dayton, Ohio, cudgeled them into grudging submission.

From Newsweek ● Dec. 14, 2010

But the more she cudgeled her brain the farther away flew every idea.

From The Story of a Doctor's Telephone?Told by His Wife by Firebaugh, Ellen M.

Dollars & Scents In Manhattan prominent artists cudgelled their imaginations for the perfect perfume bottle.

From Time Magazine Archive

He cudgelled his brains how to avoid the consequences of his indiscretion.

From Bindle Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle by Jenkins, Herbert George

He spoke more slowly now, as if he cudgelled his brain for the most biting sarcasm, the most unbearable insolence.

From No Clue A Mystery Story by Hay, James

"Now," answered his friend, "what honor can lie in blacking your face with mustachios and assuming the burlesque disguise of a buffoon, in order to be cudgelled on a public stage?"

From Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Lives of More Than 200 of the Most Prominent Personages in History by Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis)

She was not an ordinary working-woman, he saw that, and cudgelled his brains to find out how she came into the country at all.

From The Sweep Winner by Gould, Nat

On the other hand, their release of 214 Americans for combat would invite a propaganda cudgeling from China, ever eager to berate Moscow for betraying its allies in Hanoi.

From Time Magazine Archive

With competition in the U.S. television industry growing hotter by the day, manufacturers were cudgeling their brains for new ways to trim costs and prices.

From Time Magazine Archive

With the return of the buyer's market, every U.S. manufacturer is cudgeling his brain?and the brains of designers?to make his product work better, feel better, look better and sell better than those of his rivals.

From Time Magazine Archive

Mr. Lippmann is mistaken when he uses the map as a means of cudgeling our academic system of education.

From Time Magazine Archive

The clowns knew this, and, from the veteran Bill Watson to the newest member of the staff, they were continually cudgeling their brains for novelty.

From Joe Strong, the Boy Fish or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank by Barnum, Vance

Stevens portrays Dickens at his desk, cudgelling his brains to find the name of the miser for his forthcoming tale.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 2, 2017

The contemporary guardians of culture have a habit of cudgelling anyone who might try to use culture for didactic ends or to open a subject up to a mass audience.

From BBC ● Jan. 7, 2011

Secretary Mellon wrote a "cudgelling," Are the "good times" so good?

From Time Magazine Archive

O ho, then it seems the cudgelling and turning away were pure invention; I am glad I understand it.

From Dryden's Works Vol. 3 (of 18) Sir Martin Mar-All; The Tempest; An Evening's Love; Tyrannic Love by Dryden, John

I asked myself; and it was only after cudgelling my brains for several minutes that I found I had re-invented Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

From Dramatic Technique by Baker, George Pierce