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cudgel

noun
/ˈkʌd͡ʒəl/

Etymology

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

  1. derived from *gew-✻ — “to bow, bend, arch, curve”
  2. derived from *gewgʰ-✻ — “swelling, bow”
  3. derived from *kuggǭ✻ — “cog, swelling”
  4. inherited from *kuggilaz✻ — “a knobbed instrument”
  5. inherited from *kuggil✻
  6. inherited from cyċġel — “a large stick, cudgel”
  7. inherited from kuggel

Definitions

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

    • The guard hefted his cudgel menacingly and looked at the inmates.
    • Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they gained in skill and strength.
    • So when he aroſe, he getteth him a grievous Crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the Dungeon to them; and there firſt falls to Rateing of them, as if they were dogs: […]

  2. Anything that can be used as a threat to force one's will on another.

    • As above said, legibility depends also much on the design of the letter; and again I take up the cudgels against compressed type, and that especially in Roman letters: […]

  3. To strike with a cudgel.

    • The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters.
    • I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
    • Poets like Cudgel'd Bullys, never do / At firſt, or ſecond blow, ſubmit to you; / But will provoke you ſtill and ne're have done, / Till you are weary ſirst, with laying on: […]
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To exercise (one's wits or brains) in an effort to force a memory or solution

      To exercise (one's wits or brains) in an effort to force a memory or solution; to rack (one's mind).

      • “Most remarkable,” murmured Tarzan, cudgeling his brain for some pretext upon which to turn the subject.

    2. A locality in the Leeton council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.

The neighborhood

Derived

becudgel, take up the cudgel for, cudgeler, cudgel one's brain, uncudgeled, uncudgelled

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cudgel. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA