cudgel

English

Etymology

From Middle English kuggel, from Old English cycgel (“a large stick, cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *kuggilaz (“knobbed instrument”), derivative of Proto-Germanic *kuggōn (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *geugʰ- (“swelling, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *geu-, *gū- (“to bow, bend, arch, curve”). Cognate with Middle Dutch coghele (“stick with a rounded end”). Related to cog.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʌdʒəl

Noun

cudgel (plural cudgels)

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

   The guard hefted his cudgel menacingly and looked at the inmates. The threat to swing glinted in his eye.

   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Chapter V

     Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they gained in skill and strength.

   • Bunyan

     He getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel and […] falls to rating of them as if they were dogs.

Synonyms

• club

Translations

a short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon

• Bulgarian: сопа (bg) (sopa) f
• Czech: kyj (cs) m
• Dutch: knuppel (nl) m
• Finnish: nuija (fi), ryhmysauva (fi)
• German: Knüppel (de) m
• Greek: ρόπαλο (el) (rópalo) n

• Hungarian: fütykös (hu), husáng (hu), furkósbot (hu), bunkósbot (hu)
• Korean: 쇠몽둥이 (soe-mongdungI), 철퇴 (鐵槌, cheoltoe)
• Old Norse: klubba c
• Russian: дубинка (ru) (dubinka) f
• Serbo-Croatian: batina (sh), toljaga (sh), močuga (sh), buzdovan (sh)
• Swedish: klubba c, påk c

Verb

cudgel (third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle cudgeling or (UK) cudgelling, simple past and past participle cudgeled or (UK) cudgelled)

1. to strike someone with a cudgel

   The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters, with his own beatstick no less.

Anagrams

• cludge