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Cudgel   Listen
noun
Cudgel  n.  A staff used in cudgel play, shorter than the quarterstaff, and wielded with one hand; hence, any heavy stick used as a weapon. "He getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel and... falls to rating of them as if they were dogs."
Cudgel play, a fight or sportive contest with cudgels.
To cross the cudgels, to forbear or give up the contest; a phrase borrowed from the practice of cudgel players, who lay one cudgel over another when the contest is ended.
To take up cudgels for, to engage in a contest in behalf of (some one or something).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cudgel" Quotes from Famous Books



... calmly, that the corn was not yet dry enough to shake out the grain; that besides, his wife had been ill, and that he would pay him as soon as possible. The young man, little satisfied with this answer, threatened to cudgel the old man: upon which, this last, who was in the soldier's hut, affronted at this threat, told him, he should turn out, and try who was the best man. On this challenge, the soldier, calling out murder, brings the guard to his assistance. The guard being come, the young ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... conversion is himself a divided self. His house of clay, one might almost suggest, is occupied by two tenants, one of whom would weep over sinners, while the other can serve God only by cudgelling the Devil back to hell with imprecations of a rich and florid nature. This stronger self, because of its cudgel, is in command of the situation, but the whimpering of the other is not to be stilled by blows which, however hearty and devastating, have not yet brought the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... striking about with—yes, here it is," he continued, picking up a stout piece of pine, one of the branches that had been in the fire till the small twigs were burned off, leaving it as a strong cudgel about two feet long. "He struck me with this, and he was dashing it about among ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... followed by the others, and all crying at the tops of their voices, "Kill! Kill! this for Captain Fracasse, from the Duke of Vallombreuse." Meantime de Sigognac had wound his large cloak several times round his left arm for a shield, and receiving upon it the first blow from Azolan's cudgel, returned it with such a violent lunge, full in his antagonist's breast, that the miserable fellow went over backward, with great force, right into the gutter running down the middle of the street, with his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... to the minister: "I have charged Blainvilliers to show him a cudgel and tell him that with its aid we can ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... her, "Wait a moment, little one, till I come," and runs in great haste to play with the madcap, she has disappeared. She has gone into her hole, hides herself there, rolls herself up, and retires. Take the poker, take a staff, a cudgel, a cane, raise them, strike the wench, and rave at her, she moans; strap her, she moans; caress her, fondle her, she moans; kiss her, say to her, "Here, little one," she moans. Now she's cold, now she is going to die; ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... but I soon found, by their looks, that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel. Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... Bergthorsknoll, whose name was Saevuna. She was wise in many things, and foresighted; but she was then very old, and Njal's sons called her an old dotard, when she talked so much, but still some things which she said came to pass. It fell one day that she took a cudgel in her hand, and went up above the house to a stack of vetches. She beat the stack of vetches with her cudgel, and wished it might never thrive, "wretch that ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... four-year-old Lennie there were eight small Josephs in all in the little log house on the prairie; so that when each little Joseph wanted to give a Christmas box to each of the other little Josephs, and something to Father and Mother Joseph besides, it is no wonder that they had to cudgel their small brains for ways ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... lead due north. As I wended along this, I saw a man upon a donkey, riding towards me. The man was commonly dressed, with a broad felt hat on his head, and a kind of satchel on his back; he seemed to be in a mighty hurry, and was every now and then belabouring the donkey with a cudgel. The donkey, however, which was a fine large creature of the silver-grey species, did not appear to sympathise at all with its rider in his desire to get on, but kept its head turned back as much as possible, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... in front of the lens, so picking up a long cudgel I always carry afield, and going quietly to surrounding thistles, I jarred them lightly with it, and began rounding up the Hemaris family in the direction of the camera. The trick was a complete success. Soon I had an exposure on two. After they had faced ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... and do the best it's the will of God to let you do. And tell her from me, Noreen—" He stopped, drawing in his lip, and clutching his cudgel hard. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... when he had let drop His implements of art and shut up shop, Was still a barber, so the wise is best In every craft, a king's among the rest." Hail to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless, Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess; And now, unless your cudgel keeps them off, The mob begins to hustle, push, and scoff; You, all forlorn, attempt to stand at bay, And roar till your imperial lungs give way. Well, so we part: each takes his separate path: You make your progress to your farthing ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step out on the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap with a majestic and benign "Good morning to you." He walked the deck till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to use a thick cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip—a slight touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went below to feed his canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the head ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... are? They have not had wisdom enough to manage their own estates, and are they now to teach the King {84} and Your Highness how to govern the country? By the living God, if my advice were taken, their petition should have a cudgel for a commentary, and we would make them go down the steps of the palace a great deal faster than ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... he heard afar Two dogs contend with noisy jar; Away he scoured to lay about him, Resolved no fray should be without him. Forth from the yard—which was a tanner's— The master rushed to teach him manners; And with the cudgel tanned his hide, And bullied him with words beside. Forth from another yard—a butcher's— The master rushed—his name was Mutchers— "Why, who the deuce are you?" he cried: "Why do you interfere? Bankside Has, at the Bull-pit, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... to bite, which he did most furiously; and the butcher, who had an affection for his dog, when he perceived its condition, also vented his fury upon poor Cophagus, by saluting him with several blows on his head with his cudgel. What between the bull, the dog, and the butcher, poor Mr Cophagus was taken into a shop in a very deplorable condition. After some time he recovered, and was able to name his residence, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him, for David was but a boy, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And he said to David, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a cudgel?" And with curses he cried out again, "Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... walk, taking with him a thick cudgel and his own thoughts. He went away across the demesne and down into the road that led away by Gortnaclough and Boherbue towards Castleisland and the wilds of county Kerry. As he went, the men about the place refrained from speaking to him, for they all knew that bad ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... race of human beings; and they formed, in all their habits, a striking contrast with their enslaved brethren. Whilst the latter devote their spare hours to the culture of their own little spots, to cudgel-playing, dancing, or other gambols, the former appear to spend their whole time in a state between sleeping and waking, at the doors of their huts, or under the shelter of trees. Some of the Maroon females, I observed, were really handsome, their features being high, and their persons elegantly ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... doubt of her integrity. I could have staked my life that she was clear of blame, and, though all was dark at the present, that the explanation of the mystery would show her part in these events to be both right and needful. It was true, let me cudgel my imagination as I pleased, that I could invent no theory of her relations to Northmour; but I felt none the less sure of my conclusion because it was founded on instinct in place of reason, and, as I may say, went to sleep that night ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... squirmed with delight. Then she turned upon Anthony eyes swimming with tenderness, put up consoling lips.... The entrance of Polichinelle, however, cudgel and all, in the shape of a little white dog, dragging a bough with him, spoiled her game. Harlequin Sun, too, flashed out of hiding—before his cue, really, for the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... depreciatory as Pope's unprovoked attack on Addison. Dryden's satire is often coarse, but where it is coarsest, it is commonly in defence of himself against attacks that were themselves brutal. Then, to be sure, he snatches the first ready cudgel, as in Shadwell's case, though even then there is something of the good-humor of conscious strength. Pope's provocation was too often the mere opportunity to say a biting thing, where he could do it safely. If his victim showed fight, he tried to smooth things over, as with Dennis. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... mechanical, with the sensitive, but as if it were insensate, has engendered the coarse and hard spirit of a sorcerer. The former is unable, the latter unwilling, to master the absolute pre-requisites. There is neither hope nor occasion for him "to cudgel his brains about it, he has no feeling of the business." If he do not see the necessity from without, if he have not learned the possibility from within, of interpenetration, of total intussusception, ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... spank, thrash, batter, conquer, pommel, strike, vanquish, belabor, cudgel, pound, surpass, whip, bruise, defeat, scourge, switch, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with a retributory cudgel, and, finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... would look on them with the wish to appear in their likeness. Whether the puppet show of Punch and Judy inspires our street-urchins to have instant recourse to their fists in a dispute, after the fashion of every one of the actors in that public entertainment who gets possession of the cudgel, is open to question: it has been hinted; and angry moralists have traced the national taste for tales of crime to the smell of blood in our nursery-songs. It will at any rate hardly be questioned that it is unwholesome for men and women to see themselves as they are, if they are no better ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... which was departed: and from it proceeded all those Actions by which she shew'd her Care of him, and Affection, to him, and not from this unactive Body; but that the Body was to it only as an Instrument or Tool, like his Cudgel which he had made for himself, with which he used to Fight with the Wild Beasts. So that now, all his regard to the Body was remov'd, and transferr'd to that by which the Body is governed, and by whose Power ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... Neighbours pour into the street, men and women in night-attire; finally, the heavy burghers arrive, the masters themselves, noisy, almost disorderly, in their attempts to restore order. Beckmesser, singing at the top of his lungs, does not wake to consciousness of his surroundings until a cudgel falls across his back, wielded by David. He flees—but is at every few steps overtaken again and beaten. The two figures, in flight and pursuit, waving lute and brandishing cudgel, disappear and reappear at intervals among the swaying crowd. In vain Magdalene from ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... words seemed likely to lead to blows; but my brother, whom in the excitement of the moment we had quite forgotten, now appeared upon the scene in rather a dazed condition, and, hearing the altercation going on, advanced within striking distance of the waggoner. I could see by the way he held his cudgel that he meant mischief if the course of events had rendered it necessary, but the blood on the waggoner's face showed he ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... in the middle of the white, dusty road, in the full glare of the sun; he was sick unto death, and motionless. His master gave him the only medicine in his pharmacy—kicks and oaths and blows with a cudgel of oak, which had been often the only food and drink, the only wage and reward, ever offered to him. But Patrasche was beyond the reach of any torture or of any curses. Patrasche lay, dead to all appearances, down in the white powder of the summer dust. After a while, finding ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)

... and rural, with laws, with codes, with customs; ground to the earth with imposts, with fines, with quit-rents, with mortmains, import and export duties, rents, tithes, tolls, statute-labour, and bankruptcies; cudgelled with a cudgel called a sceptre; gasping, sweating, groaning, always marching, crowned, but on their knees, rather a beast of burthen than a nation,—the French people suddenly stood upright, determined to be men, and resolved to demand an account of Providence, and to liquidate ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... Is with the triple thunder hung, 220 Who cries to Fear, 'Stand off—aloof,' And talks as he were cannon-proof; Would be deem'd ready, when you list, With sword and pistol, stick and fist, Careless of points, balls, bruises, knocks, At once to fence, fire, cudgel, box, But at the same time bears about, Within himself, some touch of doubt, Of prudent doubt, which hints—that fame Is nothing but an empty name; 230 That life is rightly understood By all to be a real good; That, even in a hero's ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... 'A cudgel!' he shouted in his deep voice. 'An alarm! The Chechens are upon us! Ivan! get the samovar ready for your master, and get up yourself—quick,' cried the old man. 'That's our way, my good man! Why even the girls are already up! Look out of the window. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... temper at finding himself so stoutly opposed, and at hearing the laughter of his companions, who, as usual in such cases, enjoyed his vexation. This was not a state of mind favourable to the noble game of quarter-staff, in which, as in ordinary cudgel-playing, the utmost coolness is requisite; and it gave Gurth, whose temper was steady, though surly, the opportunity of acquiring a decided advantage, in availing himself of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... hour before he came out again, and Ronald fidgeted with impatience, for it was already growing dusk. When he issued out Ronald saw that he was armed with a heavy cudgel. He walked quickly now, and Ronald, following at a distance, passed nearly across the town, and down a quiet street which terminated against the old wall running from the Castle Port to a small tower. When he got near the bottom of the street ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... le Cure,' said the other. 'It was only soft earth. I ought to have thrown these stones at her. It's easy to see that you don't know girls. Hard as nails, all of them. I might duck that one in the well, I might break all her bones with a cudgel, and she'd still be just the same. But I've got my eye on her, and if I catch her!... Ah! well, they are all ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... the round-headed rogues did it in scorn of us," said Dick Wildblood of the Dale, "I would cudgel their psalmody out of their peasantly throats with this very truncheon;" a motion which, being seconded by old Roger Raine, the drunken tapster of the Peveril Arms in the village, might have brought on a general battle, but that Sir ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... get a brand of fire or a cudgel at the camp," she said with some remorse in her voice, "and run for the river bank." With that she resumed her ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... agreed to the bargain, and Wallace was left with the cloak, which he threw over his shoulders, and which covered him from head to foot. Pulling his cap well over his eyes, and choosing a trusty thorn cudgel from a neighbouring thicket, he went limping up to the door of the little ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... in the doorway, his lanthorn dangling in his hand, his cudgel stuck through his belt, his shock of hair rough like an old thatch, and his eyes upon the ground. He mumbled, ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... appear by some Etruscan vases found at Veii, that the Etruscans practised all the Greek games—leaping, running, cudgel-playing, etc., and were not restricted, as Niebuhr ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... first: I fancy you'll agree Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he; For El-n's Introduction, crabbed and dry, Like Churchill's Cudgel's {3} marked with LIE, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... to get this stick—so away he went with it to the inn, and as soon as the publican, appeared, "Up stick and bang him!" was his cry. At the word the cudgel flew from his hand and battered the old publican on the back, rapped his head, bruised his arms tickled his ribs, till he fell groaning on the floor; still the stick belaboured the prostrate man, nor would Jack call it off till he had got back the stolen ass and table. Then he galloped ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... Putney he may see several persons of quality bowling, two or three times a week all the summer; wrestling, in Lincoln's Inne Field every evening all the summer; bear and bull-baiting, and sometimes prizes, at the Bear-Garden; shooting in the long-bow and stob-ball, in Tothil Fields; cudgel-playing, in several places in the country; and hurling, in Cornwall. London.—See the East India House, and their magazines; the Custom House; the Thames, by water, from London Bridge to Deptford; and the King's Yard at Deptford; the sawing-windmill; Tradescant's garden and closet; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various

... is effectually suppressed, and as much his duty not to allow himself to be surprised and over-mastered by a pretended and hollow submission for the sake of seizing an advantage, as it is to inflict effectual blows of his cudgel while the row is in its more flagrant stages of development. The United States, having interfered by force to suppress a national riot, has a clear right, and a bounden duty, not to abandon the region of the disturbance ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... ambitious beggars in its upper classes, while the immense majority live in poky little huts. She will be glad of any way of escape; you have only to present it to her. It's only the government that still means to resist, but it brandishes its cudgel in the dark and hits its own men. Everything here is doomed and awaiting the end. Russia as she is has no future. I have become a German and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... going to Ascot or not. He says he is not quite sure, but asks me what chance Passion Flower has for the Thousand Guineas. I know he doesn't value my opinion on the subject at a brass farthing—he would be a fool if he did, but I cudgel my brains to reply to him, as though he were going to stake his shirt on my advice. We reach the first floor, and are mutually glad to get rid of one another. I catch my hostess' eye. She looks tired ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... keep pace with his cousin's tremendous stride. Demetrius was like a war-horse, which snuffs the battle from afar and tugs at the rein to join in the fray. They plunged through the dark streets. Once a man sprang out from a doorway before them with a cudgel. He may have been a footpad; but Demetrius, without pausing in his haste, smote the fellow between the eyes with a terrible fist, and the wretched creature dropped without a groan. Demetrius seemed guided to the Forum and Via Sacra as if by an inborn instinct. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... policy did him more honour. They were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and differed little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church were assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the confusion of all who were against a war with France. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in Cheapside. He had grown into a big lad. As he had been somewhat daring and fond of excitement as a boy, he was, as may be supposed, not unwilling to find himself in a turmoil, where a pair of stout fists or a thick cudgel would serve him in good stead. I had somewhat lost my taste for such things during the courtly life I had lately led. He laughed at my effeminacy, and urged me to arouse myself, and to practise the old ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... and set an arrow upon the cord, but not so quickly as to save himself from a mighty thwack from the man's cudgel. The little esquire sprang back, and in doing so dropped both bow and arrow. Nothing dismayed, he drew his sword, and engaged ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... youthful bent. When once the cloth has got its fold, The smelling-pot its scent, In vain your efforts and your care To make them other than they are. To work reform, do what you will, Old habit will be habit still. Nor fork[27] nor strap can mend its manners, Nor cudgel-blows beat down its banners. Secure the doors against the renter, And through ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... at the appointed time, and keep him waiting until he is either raging or sullen; cudgel or dragoon the children until their tempers are well on edge. Then complain of the gait taken by Mr. Simpson in order to catch the train; declare frequently when aboard that you are tired out, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... Stardi, with clenched fists and set teeth. I will set about it with all the strength of my will and my heart. I will conquer my drowsiness in the evening, I will come down promptly in the morning, I will cudgel my brains without ceasing, I will chastise my laziness without mercy. I will toil, suffer, even to the extent of making myself ill; but I will put a stop, once for all, to this languishing and tiresome life, which is degrading me and causing ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... He put spurs to his horse, galloped off, fell, and was dragged along the road, the battered corpse being buried at Wareham. The queen had committed this murder for the benefit of her youngest son, and hearing him bewail his brother's death, she flew into a passion, and, no cudgel being at hand, belabored him so stoutly with a large wax candle that he could never afterwards bear the sight of one. The king's remains were then translated to Shaftesbury, miracles were wrought, and ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... soldiers, a mountebank with an Andrew and a Master Merriman, and such lots of booths with toys, and beads, and ribbons; more cakes and sweetmeats than I could eat in a year; besides a merry-go-round and two flying ships. Then, there will be wrestling and cudgel-playing, foot-ball, jumping in sacks, and dancing on the church-green to the pipe and tabor, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... death and destruction. Gliding, with lightly-dipping oars, into the yawning chasm, he stepped nimbly from his boat, and making the painter fast to a projecting rock, he lighted a torch, and, armed only with a stout cudgel, penetrated into the innermost recesses of the cavern. There he found a vast quantity of birds and eggs, and soon became so engrossed with his sport that he paid no attention to the lapse of time, until the hollow sound of rushing waters behind him made him aware ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... of memory encouraged Miss Webling to hope that she could remember a little farther back to the contents of the letter and the telephone number written there. But her memory would not respond. The effort to cudgel it seemed to confuse it. She kept on forgetting more and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... them. A dozen bounds or so and we were up with them. With an inarticulate cry of rage Smellie sprang upon the man nearest him and brought his stick down upon the fellow's head with such tremendous force that the stout cudgel shivered to pieces in his hand, whilst the recipient of the blow dropped prone without a groan or cry of any kind upon the pathway. The other meanwhile had dropped his share of their joint burden and seemed inclined to resume hostilities, but a well-aimed ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... restless rage I wander through these woods; No creature here but feareth Bremo's force, Man, woman, child; beast and bird, And everything that doth approach my sight, Are forc'd to fall, if Bremo once do frown. Come, cudgel, come, my partner in my spoils, For here I see this day it will not be. But when it falls, that I encounter any, One pat sufficeth for to work my will. What, comes not one? Then let's begone; A time will serve, when we shall better ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... Paris exquisites, who aped the London cockneys in the first French Revolution. Their dress was top-boots with thick soles, knee-breeches, a dress-coat with long tails and high stiff collar, and a thick cudgel called a constitution. It was thought John Bull-like to assume a huskiness of voice, a discourtesy of manners, and a swaggering vulgarity of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... blew under her veil, which flew up in the air behind her. She was so pure, so unspotted in all that white; and, cudgel her brains as she would, she could not remember any fault or sin which she had omitted to confess. Though Our Lord had not spoken to her, He had been there all the same and she had not heard Him because ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... Are you not ashamed of opening your mouth before your betters—so many of them too? Has the wine been getting into your head, or do you always babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you beat the tramp Irus; take care that a better man than he does not come and cudgel you about the head till he pack you bleeding out ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... thought it was that ould dog a-goin' to lape at us, so I did!" muttered the Irish lad, shaking his head, and grasping his cudgel more firmly. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... that! Don't even box his ears in the street, but give a street-porter ten shillings to cudgel him well as he comes out of the theatre; ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... ascribed to want of capacity. He discovered no contemptible sagacity and quick-wittedness in the science of horse-flesh, and was eminently expert in the arts of shooting, fishing, and hunting. Nor did he confine himself to these, but added the theory and practice of boxing, cudgel play, and quarter-staff. These exercises added ten-fold robustness and vigour ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... circumstantial evidence, determined to refer the decision to the chance of battle; in other words, he gave orders for a combat between the assassin and the dog. The lists were appointed, and the man was allowed for his weapon a great cudgel. ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... vigour rather than of grace. This is probably true of all country dances: it is pre-eminently true of the Morris dance. It is, in spirit, the organized, traditional expression of virility, sound health and animal spirits. It smacks of cudgel-play, of quarter-staff, of wrestling, of honest fisticuffs. There is nothing sinuous in it, nothing dreamy; nothing whatever is left to the imagination. It is a formula based upon and arising out of the life of man, as it is lived by men who hold much speculation upon ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp

... dropped the fellow in his tracks. Then he swung upon the others with their fallen comrade's bludgeon striking to right and left mighty, unmerciful blows that drove down their own weapons until that wielded by the ape-man was splintered and shattered. On either hand they fell before his cudgel; so rapid the delivery of his blows, so catlike his recovery that in the first few moments of the battle he seemed invulnerable to their attack; but it could not last—he was outnumbered twenty to one and his undoing ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... throstle's note; Quick in dance as thought can be; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; O, lie lies by the willow-tree! My ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... what he's afraid of, Monsieur Louis. Give me a good sickle and a good cudgel, and I'm not afraid of a wolf; give me a good gun and I'm not afraid of any man, even if I knew he's waiting ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... that we had possession of the mosque, he recovered his wits a little, and managed, after hearing our promise to throw him to the mob outside unless he discovered a means of escape for us, to cudgel his brains and announce ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... thou hast redeem'd them from this sceptre: [Shaking his Cudgel. But let them vanish; For if they grumble, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... importance, though, for the life of him, he could not tell why. His sense of proportion, his social sense, his self-complacency, grew restive under the pressure of it. He told himself it wasn't of the smallest consequence, didn't matter a fig, yet continued to cudgel his memory. And, all the while, the sound of deliberate footsteps crunching over the dry rattling shingle, nearer and nearer, contributed to increase ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... Agen, that was out of a Play—Hark ye, Witch of Endor, hold your prating Tongue, or I shall most well-favour'dly cudgel ye. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... the Duke's grace purveyor to the mint, passed by me. No sooner had he got outside the church than the dirty pig let fly four cracks which might have been heard from San Miniato. I cried: "Yah! pig, poltroon, donkey! is that the noise your filthy talents make?" and ran off for a cudgel. He took refuge on the instant in the mint; while I stationed myself inside my housedoor, which I left ajar, setting a boy at watch upon the street to warn me when the pig should leave the mint. After waiting some time, I grew tired, and my heat cooled. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... romance of Richard Lion-Heart, another manner of man than himself. We said nought to this, not choosing to dine in such high company, but rode up under the walls of Roye, defying the Duke with open ribaldry, such as no manant could bear but he would take cudgel in hand to defend his honour. Our intent was, if the Duke accepted battle, to fight with none but him, if perchance we might take him, and hold him as hostage ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... as sentries, at this juncture, were Woodburn and Bart, who, with each a stout cane or cudgel in his hand, were now stationed ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... cheeks, and a big nose and broad, big nostrils and ugly, and thick lips redder than a collop, and great teeth yellow and ugly, and he was shod with hosen and shoon of bull's hide, bound with cords of bark over the knee, and all about him a great cloak twy-fold, and he leaned on a grievous cudgel, and Aucassin came unto him, and was ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang

... there ever such yeomen as the sevenscore merry men that roamed with him through the greenwood shades. Right merrily they dwelled within the depths of Sherwood Forest, suffering neither care nor want, but passing the time in merry games of archery or bouts of cudgel play, living upon the King's venison, washed down with draughts of ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... bar was suddenly withdrawn and he was looking inside a poor hut, smoky from the wood-fire in the midst of it. An old woman sat by it with a bowl in her hand, and an oldish man with a cudgel stood before him. He did not understand their speech, but he gathered he was ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... appearance of the country, together with its ill repute, made him quicken his pace, though he had no fear of molestation; having nothing to lose, he would be but poor prey for a highwayman, and he trusted to his cudgel to protect him from the attentions of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... Drayton, and, determined to cudgel his brains no longer, he reached for the brandy and drank another half glass. There was then an interchange ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... though I did have much difficulty in helping younger men out. I had the great good fortune never to be compelled to report a cadet for any delinquency, nor to find one deficient in studies, though I did sometimes have, figuratively speaking, to beat them over the head with a cudgel to get in "phil" enough to pass the ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... hands vsed a stratagem, farre against his owne disposition, being as hee was very francke and open: and though it grieued him very much that any Indian should be so bold, as with reason, or without reason to despise the Christians, he tooke vp a cudgel, and tooke their parts against his owne men; which was a meanes to quiet them: And presently he sent word by a man very secretly to the Campe, that some armed men should come toward the place where he was; and hee tooke the Cacique by the hand, vsing very mild words vnto him, and with some ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... for the value of a halfpenny; other times I have known him come like a lord, and make his guineas fly about like so much dust. And once—egad! I can't help laughing—he came in the uniform of a dragoon officer, and he would needs cudgel me for letting Nicholas escape. He got me by the throat: I sung out for my very life: Jenny—she ran for the constables: the neighbours came flocking in: Alderman Gravesand brought all his posse comitatus down, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... all know, the rule on land is by no means invariable, and private property receives scant consideration when its appropriation or destruction serves the purposes of an enemy. The man who trudges the highway, cudgel in hand, may claim for his cudgel all the sacredness with which civilization invests property; but if he use it to break his neighbor's head, the respect for his property, as such, quickly disappears. Now, private property borne upon the ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... years and not over strong, wherefore the battle seemed like to go all one way. But lo, as he rushed on the goodman, of a sudden he felt his feet pulled away from under him, and fell noseling to the ground; and when he would rise, lo there was on one side of him the goodman with a cudgel in his hand, and Osberne on the other, with his whittle drawn; and the lad laughed and said: "Thou has been a long while and used many words about going, so belike thou wert best tarry no longer; or wert thou thinking thou wouldst go to bed? Nay, thou ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... instant that my unfortunate husband entered the room. He had evidently heard some suspicious sounds, and he came prepared for such a scene as he found. He was dressed in his shirt and trousers, with his favourite blackthorn cudgel in his hand. He rushed at one of the burglars, but another—it was the elderly man—stooped, picked the poker out of the grate, and struck him a horrible blow as he passed. He fell without a groan, and never moved ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... preserved the book, and prescribed to the simple heathen the forms of its worship, threw away his cudgel, or wand of office, and laid aside his fantastic dress; and Mr. Boardman sent the mysterious volume to America, to be deposited in the museum of ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... Thersites, on application or even apprehension of a whip cracked in passing over the assembled heads of a pseudocritical and mock-historic society. In either case we moderns at least might haply desire the intervention of a beadle's hand as heavy and a sceptral cudgel as knotty as ever the son of Laertes applied to the shoulders of the first of the type or the tribe of Thersites. For this brutal and brutish buffoon—I am speaking of Shakespeare's Thersites—has no touch of humour in all his currish ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you: But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... air. It was a heavy cudgel. Whack! whack! whack! the three fellows retreated as their shoulders were assailed good ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... war matters, and then very little. The nearest of blood is the avenger. The youngest are the most courageous, and do for the most part what they please. Their weapons formerly were the bow and arrow, which they employ with wonderful skill, and the cudgel, but they now, that is, those who lives near the Christians or have many dealings with them, generally use firelocks and hatchets, which they obtain in trade. They are exceedingly fond of guns, sparing no expense for them; ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... amusing talk with the celebrated admiral, Sir Charles Napier, who was present on horseback, in a British post- captain's uniform, but with a little hat, a la Napoleon, with a Portuguese cockade, his trousers all worked up, huge spurs on his feet, and an enormous cudgel ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... Schillingschen, trying to break loose and attack him. For answer he raised his cudgel in both hands and stood on tiptoe to get leverage. If that blow had landed it must have broken something, for he was strong as a gorilla; but somebody shouted—I recognized Fred's voice, and in another second he and Will charged down on us. Schillingschen turned ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... relaxed. That the gendarmes of the unattached troops, the feudal nobles, the free archers, and the Swiss inflict infinite evils on the rustics.—That the military, not content with what they find in the houses of the rustics, constrain them with violent blows of cudgel or of lash to go and get wine, spices, and other unreasonable things in the town.—That monsieur the king knows this. That we undertake to guard our people against inconveniences, larcenies and pillage.—That such is our will, by our Lady!—That ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... went abroad that there was a sort of melee in school, and the teacher was flung upon the floor in the scuffle. By the time Samuel found himself on his back, the teacher stood over him with what the young rebel called a cugel (cudgel) ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... he, "I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, come of the Manly Morrisons of auld langsyne, that never took short weapon against a man in their lives. And neither needed they; they had their broadswords, and I have this bit supple (showing a formidable cudgel)—for dirking ower the board, I leave that to John Highlandman. Ye needna snort, none of you Highlanders, and you in especial, Robin. I'll keep the bit knife, if you are feared for the auld spae-wife's tale, and give it back to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... fool than I take you for if you do," said Donald. "Listen to me now. From what Neal has told us it's evident that you're wrong about Lord Dunseveric. It wasn't he who brought the yeomen on us. There is someone else giving information, and it's someone who knows a good deal. Come now, brother Micah, cudgel your brains; think, man, ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... and sconces, or he had been here, and we might have been tacking up by this time. Sir, says I, pray be advis'd by a friend, and make the best of your speed out of my doors, for I hear my wife's voice, (which by the by, is pretty distinguishable) and in that corner of the room stands a good cudgel, which somebody has felt e're now; if that light in her hands, and she know the business you come about, without consulting the stars, I can assure you it will be employed very much to the detriment of your person. ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift

... the business of the corrupt and corrupting Ministry in his comedy, Mr Pasquin proceeds to exhibit the rehearsal of his tragedy, The Life and Death of Common Sense. Here the satirist, leaving politics, applies his cudgel mainly to the prevailing taste for pantomime, a form of entertainment introduced it was said some thirty years previously by one Weaver, a country dancing master, and already lashed by Sir Richard Steele ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... very well now, but you should see it in winter," retorted Kate. "Great, bare, snake-like things all over the—now, don't cudgel your brains to bring 'plates' or 'crumbs' into that!" she ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... the Clerico, Murtough Brennan, pitifully mounted on the Back of a very poor Ass (for they would neither let, nor lend him a Mule through all the Town) his Legs almost rested on the Ground, for he was lusty, as his Ass was little; and a Fellow with a large Cudgel march'd a-foot, driving his Ass along. Never did Sancha Pancha, on his Embassage to Dulcinea, make such a despicable, out of the way Figure, as our Clerico did at this Time. And what increas'd our Mirth was, their telling me, that our Clerico, like that Squire (tho' upon his own Priest-Errantry) ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... turning his back, he managed to speak his base and foolish thought. She, thinking this a jest, at first made light of it, but when he faced her once more, frowning this time, like a thunder-cloud, and brandishing the cudgel above his head, she was filled with fear and could hardly keep her feet. She denied the charge. She begged that he would tell the names of her accusers that she might ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... beard pointed upwards, exposing all the thick sinewy throat beneath it. His eyes were half open and looked bleared and unhealthy, while his thick lips puffed out with a whistling sound at every expiration. His dirty brown coat was thrown open, and out of one of the pockets protruded a short thick cudgel with a leaden head. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that betraying rascal Giles, a rogue, who would take Judas's bargain out of his hands, and undersell him. Command him strictly to mew himself up in his lodgings, till farther orders: and in case he be refractory, let him know, I have not forgot to kick and cudgel. That memento would do well for ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... "Cudgel my lazy brains to produce trash, and hate my worthless work, which probably wouldn't sell. I haven't it in me, Godfrey." There was a pause.—"By Jove, though, I will write!" said ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... thirty miles that night, and again slept in a wood. The next evening, when they entered a village to buy food, the man in the shop, after looking at them, suddenly seized Jacob, and shouted loudly for help. Harry stretched him on the ground with a heavy blow of the stout cudgel he carried. The man's shouts, however, had called up some of his neighbors, and these ran up as they issued from the shop, and tried to seize them. The friends, however, struck out lustily with their sticks, Jacob carrying one concealed beneath his dress. In two or three minutes they had ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... not begin noo," says he. "Every man tae his ain weepon," he says. "Now I warrant ye could do something wi' a guid crab-tree cudgel!" ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... it! Cudgel your brains for the answer. We don't want any mixed-anatomy Sphinxes rampaging around ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... matter farther, we may observe, that it is impossible for men so much as to murder each other without statutes, and maxims, and an idea of justice and honour. War has its laws as well as peace; and even that sportive kind of war, carried on among wrestlers, boxers, cudgel-players, gladiators, is regulated by fixed principles. Common interest and utility beget infallibly a standard of right and wrong ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... quoth Amyas. "Before we come to talk, thou wilt please to lay down that Plymouth cloak of thine." And he pointed to the cudgel, which among West-country ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... animal in the man being roused, he longed to throw himself on his antagonist to grasp his throat, but the successful use of the cudgel against the sword indicated that this was an adept at quarter-staff and a man with naked hands would have easily been beaten if pitted with him. Sendlingen, warily and rapidly surveying the limited field of combat, caught sight of the Jew's walking-staff and sprang ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... sir," answered Tom, and strode on. Byrne watched him step out on a narrow path. In a thick pea-jacket with a pair of pistols in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout cudgel in his hand, he looked a sturdy figure and well able to take care of himself. He turned round for a moment to wave his hand, giving to Byrne one more view of his honest bronzed face with bushy whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches looking, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... had occurred by one of the waiters, who knew the truant's haunts at any hour, came rushing into the room, and without waiting for an explanation, set upon the major with the fury of a goaded tiger, and when he had belabored him with a cudgel until they all declared there was not life enough in him to last till day light, drew a knife, and had despatched him on the spot, but for General Benthornham, who, being called upon to quell the outbreak, had armed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... the wolf thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... distinguish the one from the other. These dogs never barked, but howled with the weird, dismal howl of the wolf. And when they were hungry they were such dangerous, savage brutes that it was unsafe for a stranger, unless armed with a cudgel, ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... are life-savers, for the periscope prevents a man pushing his head above the parapet to see if Johnny Turk is coming over to say "Good morning." Something had to be done, so the famous quartette began to cudgel their brains. ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... sea, but he might cultivate it by terracing the steep slopes. On its crest was the Pirate's Tower—did not the senor remember? It was a fortification dating from the time of the corsairs. Don Jaime had scrambled up to it many times when a child, shouting like a young warrior, flourishing a cudgel of juniper wood, giving orders for the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... dinners, scorched linen, dirtied carpets, torn sofa-covers, squealing brats, cross husbands, would ever discompose either of you. You ought never to marry a good-tempered man, it would be mingling honey with sugar, like sticking white roses upon a black-thorn cudgel. With this very picturesque metaphor I close my letter. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... responsive; a real pain and partial insanity has seized Agamemnon. Strange enough: a many-counselled Ulysses is set in motion by a scoundrel-blockhead; plays tunes, like a barrel-organ, at the scoundrel-blockhead's touch,—has to snatch, namely, his sceptre-cudgel, and weal the crooked back with bumps and thumps! Let a chief of men reflect well on it. Not in having 'no business' with men, but in having no unjust business with them, and in having all manner of true and just business, can either his or their blessedness be found ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... night is lighter than morning with the north light. The night"—this with a last drive—"the night is same as day to man of spirit! 'Tis the sort of encouragement half the world needs to succeed," said M. Radisson, throwing down the cudgel. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... blade, steel; ax, bill; pole-ax, battle-ax; gisarme^, halberd, partisan, tomahawk, bowie knife^; ataghan^, attaghan^, yataghan^; yatacban^; assagai, assegai^; good sword, trusty sword, naked sword; cold steel. club, mace, truncheon, staff, bludgeon, cudgel, life preserver, shillelah, sprig; hand staff, quarter staff; bat, cane, stick, knuckle duster; billy, blackjack, sandbag, waddy^. gun, piece [Fr.]; firearms; artillery, ordnance; siege train, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... protuberance, which I have noticed in the crania of inventors. So I want you to go round the works, and observe for yourself how Life is thrown gayly away, in a moment, by needless accident, and painfully gnawed away by steel-dust, stone grit, sulphuret of lead, etc.; and then cudgel your ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... more obvious; and she showed off the girl's advantages like a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of ill-will. At last the match-maker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is sometimes a little ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sport: Morris-dancers thou shalt see, Marian, too, in pageantry; And a mimic to devise Many grinning properties. Players there will be, and those Base in action as in clothes; Yet with strutting they will please The incurious villages. Near the dying of the day There will be a cudgel-play, Where a coxcomb will be broke, Ere a good word can be spoke: But the anger ends all here, Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer. —Happy rusticks! best content With the cheapest merriment; And possess no other fear, Than to want the ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... sir," thundered the Admiral, "in that I will force you to leave this quarrel! Death of my life! shall this get abroad? Not that common soldiers or mariners ashore fall out and cudgel each other until the one cannot handle a rope nor the other a morris-pike! not that wild gallants, reckless and broken adventurers whose loss the next daredevil scamp may supply, choose the eve of sailing for a duello, in which one or both may be slain; but that strive together my captains, men ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... performed with all the symptoms of reluctance, turning his head, and accompanying every bound he made in advance with a sidelong motion, which indicated his extreme wish to turn round,—a manoeuvre which nothing but the constant exercise of the Laird's heels and cudgel could possibly ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... appears, And frequent fights retrenched his ears. As, on a time, he heard from far Two dogs engaged in noisy war, Away he scours and lays about him, Resolved no fray should be without him. Forth from his yard a tanner flies, And to the bold intruder cries: 'A cudgel shall correct your manners, Whence sprung this cursed hate to tanners? 20 While on my dog you vent your spite, Sirrah! 'tis me you dare not bite.' To see the battle thus perplexed, With equal rage a butcher vexed, Hoarse-screaming from the circled crowd, To the cursed ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... there crouched in the bushes at the dark edge of the swamp road, with eyes that watched every glitter of the coins, and a hand that grasped a heavy cudgel of blackthorn, a man whose close-cropped hair and hard lined face belonged nowhere but within the walls ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... or his UFO hungry NICAPions. They wanted blood and that blood had to taste like spaceships or they wouldn't be happy. The cudgel they picked ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... fan, made my bow to the lady and went on. Hardly had we gone two more blocks when the screaming and jabbering monkey fell upon us. Behind him on the roof of one of the houses we saw a man with a long cudgel which he shook at the monkey. I stopped the elephant again and said to the man, "Why art thou irate when the evening is so cool, ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji

... rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... impudence, a lowness, a dirtiness, which can be paralleled only among the heroes and heroines of that filthy and heartless literature which encouraged it. One nobleman of great abilities wanders about as a Merry-Andrew. Another harangues the mob stark naked from a window. A third lays an ambush to cudgel a man who has offended him. A knot of gentlemen of high rank and influence combine to push their fortunes at Court by circulating stories intended to ruin an innocent girl, stones which had no foundation, and which, if they had been true, would ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... window, at a great height, and saw about twenty or thirty fine lads sporting in a court below. "This is as it should be," said I; "those boys will not make worse priests from a little early devotion to trap-ball and cudgel playing. I dislike a staid, serious, puritanic education, as I firmly believe that it ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... expiate his offence against the Countess de Soissons, by removing that heap of stones, which were cast by his command against my palace-doors. If he prove intractable, bring him to his senses by administering a blow or two with a stout cudgel." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... description and of every rank, from the highest to the lowest—from St. James's to St. Giles's, in palaces and night-cellars—from the drawing-room to the dust-cart. He can drink, swear, tell stories, cudgel, box, and smoke with any one; having by his intercourse with society fitted himself for all companies. His education has been more practical than theoretical, though he was brought up at Eton, where, notwithstanding he made considerable progress in his studies, he took such an aversion ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... thus had roused his ire, Lived a little distance off. With his jealous soul on fire Cudgel stout suits his desire; He has ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... make some allowances for the conduct of Benjamin, when he remembers that but a few months before, he had run away to escape the cudgel of his brother. He will also feel inclined to make some allowance for James, when informed that he was in adversity, and struggling severely with pecuniary embarrassment. The Courant, deprived of the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... Nonsense full, At fifteen witty, and at twenty dull; That in the Pit can huff, and talk hard Words, And briskly draw Bamboo instead of Swords: But never yet Rencounter cou'd compare To our late vigorous Tartarian War: Cudgel the Weapon was, the Pit the Field; Fierce was the Hero, and too brave to yield. But stoutest Hearts must bow; and being well can'd, He crys, Hold, hold, you have the Victory gained. All laughing call— Turn out the Rascal, the eternal Blockhead; —Zounds, crys Tartarian, I am out of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... true. Every now and then a jack-in-office, like you, provokes a man to forget his years. The cudgel is a stout one, and som'at like your master's justice;—'tis a good weapon in weak hands; and that's the way many a rogue escapes a dressing.—What! you are laughing ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... keep it? Was this mysterious Hair Bracelet mixed up somehow with the grand secret about Madonna's past history, which Valentine had always kept from him and from everybody? Very likely it was—but why cudgel his brains about what didn't concern him? Was it not—considering the fact, previously forgotten, that he had but fifteen shillings and threepence of disposable money in the world—rather lucky than ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... fancy you'll agree Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he; For El-n's Introduction, crabbed and dry, Like Churchill's Cudgel's {3} marked with ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... exercise of a Tartar or Arab, prepares him sufficiently for war. Running, wrestling, cudgel-playing, throwing the javelin, drawing the bow, etc. are the common pastimes of those who live in the open air, and are all of them the images of war. When a Tartar or Arab actually goes to war, he is maintained by his own herds and ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... was the half-length of Robert M'Queen, of Braxfield, Lord Justice-Clerk. If I know gusto in painting when I see it, this canvas was painted with rare enjoyment. The tart, rosy, humorous look of the man, his nose like a cudgel, his face resting squarely on the jowl, has been caught and perpetuated with something that looks like brotherly love. A peculiarly subtle expression haunts the lower part, sensual and incredulous, like that of a man tasting good Bordeaux ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... voice which did not seem entirely unfamiliar to the shivering youth, though he could not have said exactly to whom it belonged, and was in no mood to cudgel ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... old boy," thought Lupin, "cudgel your brains: you'll never spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert's pardon only, as Clarisse wished, you might have twigged the secret! But Vaucheray, that brute of a Vaucheray, there really could not be the least ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... Ojeda hears of your calling him a cockroach on a mast, he will grind your ribs to a paste with a cudgel (os moliesen las costillas a puros palos)!" observed a pale, sharp-faced lad in a shabby doublet. The sailor who had made the comparison glanced at him ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey



Words linked to "Cudgel" :   bastinado, shillelagh, shillalah, hit, club, fustigate



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