Word of the Day Archive
Sunday October 3, 2004

cudgel \KUH-juhl\ , noun:
1. A short heavy stick used as a weapon; a club.

transitive verb:
1. To beat with or as if with a cudgel.

Whatever had been making her dogs uneasy, she'd have to handle it on her own. Rosie Bowe took a heavy piece of firewood as a cudgel and followed them.
-- Jim Crace, Signals of Distress

The Grand Vizier Kuprili of Constantinople, for example, . . . closed the city's coffeehouses. Anyone caught drinking coffee was soundly cudgeled.
-- Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds

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Cudgel derives from Old English cycgel.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for cudgel

 

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