Word of the Day Archive
Thursday July 5, 2001
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
Cudgel derives from Old English cycgel.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for cudgel
