Definition of "cudgel"
cudgel
noun
plural cudgels
A short heavy club with a rounded head used as a weapon.
Quotations
So when he aroſe, he getteth him a grievous Crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the Dungeon to them; and there firſt falls to Rateing of them, as if they were dogs: […]
1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […]; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, page 114
(figurative) Anything that can be used as a threat to force one's will on another.
Quotations
Mrs. Clinton’s Senate tenure, however, also demonstrated the risks of overcompensation: Not wanting to give Republicans fodder to portray her as soft on defense, she authorized President Bush to use force in Iraq and handed Mr. Obama a political cudgel to use against her.
2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times
[Minnesota Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all.
2019 July 17, Talia Lavin, “When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield”, in GQ
verb
third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle (US) cudgeling or (Commonwealth) cudgelling, simple past and past participle (US) cudgeled or (Commonwealth) cudgelled
Quotations
I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii]
Poets like Cudgel'd Bullys, never do / At firſt, or ſecond blow, ſubmit to you; / But will provoke you ſtill and ne're have done, / Till you are weary ſirst, with laying on: […]
1675, [William] Wycherley, The Country-wife, a Comedy, […], London: Printed for Thomas Dring, […]; republished London: Printed for T[homas] Dring, and sold by R. Bentley, and S. Magnes […], 1688, prologue