(n.) A staff used in cudgel play, shorter than the quarterstaff, and wielded with one hand; hence, any heavy stick used as a weapon.
(v. t.) To beat with a cudgel.
Example Sentences:
(1) He said the project was neither “a silver bullet for the economy” nor “an express lane to climate disaster”, and said it was time for both sides to stop using the argument over Keystone as a political cudgel.
(2) The result of the French election shows that François Hollande is now being expected to take up the cudgels.
(3) The cause of the injury was broken glass--4, cudgel--4, industrial metal--1, unknown--1.
(4) Their fans took up cudgels on either side, though the deepest desire was for the rivals to appear together.
(5) But the rise of the Islamic State (Isis), the terrorist attack in Paris and a Republican-led Congress increasingly willing to use those phenomena as a cudgel against privacy advocates have complicated congressional attitudes to mass surveillance.
(6) Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard take up cudgels again in ABC documentary Read more Garrett says in the book that supporting Rudd in light of his “trail of destruction and abandoned policy” was his biggest mistake in nearly 10 years in parliament.
(7) Except that, in Loznitsa's version, the wizard is a disgraced former soldier, the siren a child prostitute and the trolls a trio of gnarled brigands who cook potatoes at a forest campfire and cudgel anyone who draws too close.
(8) No one escaped his cudgel as he scored all round the ground, cutting, pulling, driving and, well, just belting the daylights out of the ball, with 17 fours and two sixes.
(9) But they, along with President Obama and gun control campaigners and pressure groups, will now attempt to wield this failure as a cudgel against incumbent, no-voting senators through the next election, hoping to bring about a more favorable climate in 2015.
(10) But some other MPs believe Abbott will actually consolidate his position after the dramas of the week because the various alternatives to the prime minister have now picked up the cudgels against one another.
(11) The jut of beard, the ringed fingers, the walking stick one feels he could use as a wand or a cudgel at any moment: he looks like Hagrid's wayward brother or Gandalf's louche cousin.
(12) But the pinpricks tiny sites can inflict on a target do not begin to match the cudgel blows the mass media of the 20th century could deliver.
(13) Four states voted on the question of gay marriage last Tuesday, and in each the pro-marriage equality side won, suggesting that an issue which eight years ago served as a cudgel for Republicans to push so-called "cultural" voters to the polls is no longer a political asset.
(14) Will of the people!”: we hear it from Labour too (though not its former leader, in his latest estimable effort ), less democratic than fascistic, cudgel for anyone who dares suggest we betray not just Britain – never mind Ireland – but Europe and internationalism.
(15) His successor, Dame Sally Davies, took up the cudgels in 2013, with David Cameron calling for global action the following year.
(16) Professor Goldworth takes up the cudgels in defence of the contemporary moral philosopher, who, he says, should indeed have a role in helping doctors to make clinical decisions based on philosophical theory; Mr. Thompson in his reply says that Professor Goldworth has misinterpreted his earlier argument.
(17) In any case, she expresses no desire to lay down the cudgels and become a confidante.
(18) A number of backbenchers, including the Liberal Democrat elder statesman Sir Menzies Campbell, took up the cudgels.
(19) Religious freedom “is now predominantly used by religious majorities as a cudgel to undermine our existing civil rights law”, Talbot said.
(20) He told CNN that Page was "a very kind, very smart individual" but even then had taken up the white supremacist cudgel.
Singlestick
Definition:
(n.) In England and Scotland, a cudgel used in fencing or fighting; a backsword.
(n.) The game played with singlesticks, in which he who first brings blood from his adversary's head is pronounced victor; backsword; cudgeling.