cudgel
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
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 [edit]
- Rhymes: -ʌdʒəl
Noun [edit]
cudgel (plural cudgels)
- 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 [edit]
Translations [edit]
a short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon
Verb [edit]
cudgel (third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle cudgeling or (UK) cudgelling, simple past and past participle cudgeled or (UK) cudgelled)
- to strike someone with a cudgel
- The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters, with his own beatstick no less.