cudgel
/ˈkʌd͡ʒəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.26 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To strike with a cudgel.
verb
To exercise (one's wits or brains) in an effort to force a memory or solution; to rack (one's mind).
name
A locality in the Leeton council area, southern New South Wales, Australia.
Example Sentences
- "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: […]"
- "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: […]"
- "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."
- "[Montana Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all."
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”).