cudgel

From Middle English kuggel, from Old English cyċġel (“a large stick, cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *kuggilaz (“knobbed instrument”), derivative of Proto-Germanic *kuggǭ (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *gewgʰ- (“swelling, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew-, *gū- (“to bow, bend, arch, curve”), equivalent to cog +‎ -el (diminutive suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch coghele (“stick with a rounded end”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʌdʒəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌdʒəl

cudgel (plural cudgels)

1. A short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon.

   The guard hefted his cudgel menacingly and looked at the inmates. The threat to swing glinted in his eye.

   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Chapter V

     Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they gained in skill and strength.

   • Bunyan

     He getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel and […] falls to rating of them as if they were dogs.

2. (metaphoric) Anything that can be used as a threat to force one's will on another.
   • 2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times‎:

     Mrs. Clinton’s Senate tenure, however, also demonstrated the risks of overcompensation: Not wanting to give Republicans fodder to portray her as soft on defense, she authorized President Bush to use force in Iraq and handed Mr. Obama a political cudgel to use against her.

cudgel (third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle (US) cudgeling or (UK) cudgelling, simple past and past participle (US) cudgeled or (UK) cudgelled)

1. To strike with a cudgel.

   The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters.

   • Shakespeare

     I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.

   • Jack Vance , Dying earth

     Aboard the barge and so off the trail, the blessing lost its puissance and the barge-tender, who coveted Guyal's rich accoutrements, sought to cudgel him with a knoblolly

2. To exercise (one's wits or brains).

• club
• singlestick

Club (weapon) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• cludge