Crossword clues for cudgel
cudgel
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cudgel \Cudg"el\ (k?j"?l), n. [OE. kuggel; cf. G. keule club (with a round end), kugel ball, or perh. W. cogyl cudgel, or D. cudse, kuds, cudgel.] A staff used in cudgel play, shorter than the quarterstaff, and wielded with one hand; hence, any heavy stick used as a weapon.
He getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel and . . .
falls to rating of them as if they were dogs.
--Bunyan.
Cudgel play, a fight or sportive contest with cudgels.
To cross the cudgels, to forbear or give up the contest; -- a phrase borrowed from the practice of cudgel players, who lay one cudgel over another when the contest is ended.
To take up cudgels for, to engage in a contest in behalf of (some one or something).
Cudgel \Cudg"el\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cudgeled or Cudgelled (-?ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Cudgeling or cudgelling.] To beat with a cudgel.
An he here, I would cudgel him like a dog.
--Shak.
To cudgel one's brains, to exercise one's wits.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Old English cycgel "club with rounded head;" perhaps from PIE root *geu- "to curve, bend."
"to beat with a cudgel," 1590s, from cudgel (n.). Related: Cudgeled; cudgeling.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon. 2 (rfdef: English) vb. 1 To strike with a cudgel. 2 To exercise (one's wits or brains).
WordNet
n. a club that is used as a weapon
v. strike with a cudgel
[also: cudgelling, cudgelled]
Wikipedia
Cudgel (1914–1941) was an American two-time Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.
Owned by J. K. L. Ross and trained by future U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee H. Guy Bedwell, Cudgel is probably best remembered for his win in the 1919 Havre de Grace Handicap in which he defeated two future Hall of Fame inductees, Exterminator and Sir Barton.
Cudgel raced at age three in 1917. He finished eleventh in the Kentucky Derby but showed some of his developing abilities when he finished second in the Latonia Derby. Frequently ridden by Earl Sande as well as Johnny Loftus, at age four Cudgel was the dominant older horse of 1918. The next year, despite a long layoff between May and August as a result of an injury, he came back to share Champion Older Horse honors with Sun Briar.
After retiring from racing, Cudgel stood at stud Ross's Yarrow Brae Stud near Laurel, Maryland. A successful sire, among his best, daughter Fluvanna was the 1923 American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly and his son, Froth Blower, won the 1931 King's Plate, Canada's most prestigious race.
Cudgel died in October 1941 at age twenty-seven.1
Usage examples of "cudgel".
A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone.
Juilin with his staff and Bayle Domon with his cudgel stood over a man with pale yellow hair lying facedown on the floor, unconscious.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the whaling hands at the far table were all standing up, drawing cudgels and belaying pins from their belts, grinning to one another.
The Biter men, some with short cudgels at the belt, some with a cutlass doled out the day before, looked about them eagerly, waiting for a fight.
Mine earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you: But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel.
His parties, after several bruising encounters with cudgels and cosh had gathered some volunteers, but nowhere near enough for him to both sail and fight his ship.
You looked for no weapon of opposition but spit, poker, and basting ladle, wielded by unskilful hands: but, rascals, here is short sword and long cudgel in hands well tried in war, wherewith you shall be drilled into cullenders and beaten into mummy.
Those fellows who had crewed the knarr had all moved up from Hafnarvagr to the settlement by the lake, and wandered about armed with cudgels and short swords.
On the evening of the next day, when the Sambuk made sail, the shouting and screaming, the brawling, cudgelling, and fighting, heard a mile off, reminded me of the foul company of Maghrabis on board the Golden Wire.
He was the only Irish Simonite, and relished the similarity between the cudgel and shillelagh.
The cudgels were emblematic of the fact that the Simonites were also a military order that was not afraid to use force to defend the Church, advance their cause, or collect a bad debt.
All Simonites within hearing distance ran to his back with their cudgels at shoulder arms.
He made his own, out of whatever he could find, or take, or steal, parts of cars and rescued bits of machinery, which he turned into hooks and shivs, crossbows and arbalests, small mangonels and trebuchets for breaking walls, cudgels, glaives and knob-kerries.
Francesca was a Ministerialist by family interest and allegiance, and was inclined to take up the cudgels at the suggested disparagement aimed at the Foreign Secretary.
We can pick up the cudgels again once the prankster is unmasked and after the murderer has been exposed and incarcerated.