Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




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








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Cudgel" Quotes from Famous Books



... life, the ordinary 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

... scourges, for such purpose. Here the East and the West differ diametrically. "Wounds which are given by instruments which are in one's hands by chance do not disgrace a man," says Cervantes (D. Q. i., chaps. 15), and goes on to prove that if a Zapatero (cobbler) cudgel another with his form or last, the latter must not consider himself cudgelled. The reverse in the East where a blow of a pipe stick cost Mahommed Ali Pasha's son his life: Ishmail Pasha was burned to death by Malik Nimr, chief of Shendy (Pilgrimage, i., 203). Moreover, the actual wound is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... accomplish the feat all in one sitting. At first he was content to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of inches, with which he cut a long, pliable bow, a handle for his knife, a stout cudgel, and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... wolves to intermingle only the practiced eye could 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, to wander ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... addrest my self—told him, you presented your Service to him,—sent to know how his Lady and he did. Which word Lady I no sooner named, but I thought he would have saluted me with a Cudgel,—in fine, observing her behind him, whom he shelter'd all he could with his Cloke, I taking an occasion to whisper him, gave it her over his shoulder, whilst she return'd some Smiles and Looks of Joy,—but for an answer, 'twas impossible to get ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... and sums. She hemmed the ruffle in the evening, and hurried with her work the next morning. Everything went smoothly, and Mrs. Leverett was more interested than she would have believed. And she was quite ready to take up the cudgel for her daughter's silken gown when Aunt Priscilla made her appearance. Of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... them must have experienced a severe attack of wrath when they found Carlyle suggesting that King Friedrich Wilhelm would have laid a stick across the shoulders of literary men had he been able to have his own way. The unfeeling old king used to go about thumping people in the streets with a big cudgel; and Carlyle rather implies that the world would not have been much the worse off if a stray literary man here and there could have been bludgeoned. The king flogged apple-women who did not knit and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... history of the United States in the Forties and Fifties of the last century has vanished from the general memory. When a skilled historian reopens the study of Webster's "Seventh of March speech" it is more than likely that nine out of ten Americans will have to cudgel their wits endeavoring to make quite sure just where among our political adventures that famous oration fits in. How many of us could pass a satisfactory examination on the antecedent train of events—the introduction in Congress of that ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster

... to the door, flung it open, and vanished; the branded man followed. The remaining occupants of the tobacco house started to their feet, and Havisham picked from the floor a pole and broke from it a stout cudgel. Godfrey Landless strode forward into the broad shaft of sunshine that entered through the opened door and met the eavesdropper face to face, as, with either arm in the rude grasp of the fanatics, she ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... farm-hands waited for work; and at the corner two or three stout cudgel-men leaned upon their long staves, although the market was two days closed, and there was not a Coventry merchant in sight to be ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... 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. Agias ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... 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 ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister; and on his head was a three-cornered hat, which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's father. Under his left arm was a heavy cudgel formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened root; and his equipment was completed by a wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous shoulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, well-shaped ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays. And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people, Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old cudgel out of the museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps out ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... must cudgel his brains and seek elsewhere. Now, with other work to be done, he should go back the shortest, quickest way. So he set his feet into the trail which they had made, and turned his back upon the grove. Where he crossed streams he took stock of pools; there were trout there if a man could ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... felt the sudden Celtic surging of a natural impulse to run with his kind, to swing the cudgel valiantly for the cause, and to ask questions after the shindy ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... grew nearer and nearer, and in a few moments turned up the road leading to the back of the house. The steps of the tired brute became slower as he trotted up the avenue, although the sound of a cudgel on his ribs were plainly audible. Henri and de Lescure were standing under the garden wall, and as the animal drew near them, they saw it was a jaded donkey, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... "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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... haste. Now." Ah! gentlemen, one moment. (GERONTE looks quietly out of the bag, and sees SCAPIN'S trick.) "If you do not tell us at once where your master is, we will shower a rain of blows on your back." I had rather suffer anything than tell you where my master is. "Very well, we will cudgel you soundly." Do as you please. "You want to be beaten, then?" I will never betray my master. "Ah! you will have ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere

... to express the charge he wished to make. At last, by 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

... happens that a woman marries two husbands." And these women are anything but feminine and lovable. One of the champions of the Hottentots, Theophilus Hahn, says (Globus, XII., 304) of the Namaqua women that they love to torture their slaves: "When they cudgel a slave one can easily read in their faces the infernal joy it gives them to witness the tortures of their victims." He often saw women belaboring the naked back of a slave with branches of the cruel acacia delinens, and finally rub ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... to 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 sympathize at all with its rider in his desire to get on, but kept its head turned back as much as possible, moving from one side of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... a short man swagger tow'rds the footlights at Shoreditch, Sing out "Heave aho! my hearties," and perpetually hitch Up, by an ingenious movement, trousers innocent of brace, Briskly flourishing a cudgel in his pleased ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... Mr. Reginald perfectly, and she dismissed him with a twinkle which promised well. Then Polly proceeded to cudgel her brain, while the needle went in and out, and a buttonhole formed itself in the firm, narrow line that makes of a buttonhole ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... out, and 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 that he knew ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... 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 devil ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... never shall," said the senior officer, pleasantly. "The smugglers of this coast are too wise, and I hope too kind-hearted, for that sort of work. They are not like those desperate scoundrels of Sussex. When these men are nabbed, they give up their venture as soon as it goes beyond cudgel-play, and they never lie in wait for a murderous revenge. In the south I have known a very different race, who would jump on an officer till he died, or lash him to death with their long cart-whips; such fellows ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... 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 ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... flourished his cudgel, and dancing round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... swept and garnished—he flattered himself that the report on his habitat would be a favourable one. Ned's appearance gave him a pleasant shock: it was just as if Polly herself, translated into male terms, stood before him. No need, now, to cudgel his brains for her image! In looking at Ned, he looked again at Polly. The wide-awake off, the same fine, soft, black hair came to light—here, worn rather long and curly—the same glittering black eyes, ivory-white skin, short, straight nose; and, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... silence this imputation of nullity; she was not so closely related, after all, that she need allow herself to be disturbed by it. But sister Alice took up the cudgel with all the ardor of an immediate connection and all the sensitiveness of a suburban resident. She even forgot the real, essential object of her visit: to intimate to her father that if he would give her ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... 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, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... among the children, and Walter made such a violent gesture, that Rose, covering her face with her handkerchief, whispered to him, "Walter dear, take care." Walter relieved his mind by returning, "Oh that I could cudgel ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was belabouring me with a great cudgel, a band of fierce men armed with swords and carrying lighted torches appeared. At the sight of them ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... o't. Is it like cudgel-playing or other sportful forms of bloodshed? I don't want to go, thank you, Mister ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... 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 ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... was honest, but rather suicidal. One may not wholly admire the famous editor of the Univers.[441] But nothing could better throw up his clear, vigorous, classical French and trenchant logic, than the verbose and ambaginous preciousness, and the cabbage-stick cudgel-play, of Cladel.[442] ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... be of help, and yet at the same time guarding carefully against revealing the real object of their questioning. He, for his part, set it down to the natural curiosity they felt in an event that touched the life of one of them so nearly, and did his best to cudgel his memory. But nothing more came of it than they had already learned, and it was with a sense of depression and failure that they finally gave up the cross examination that they had come ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... revery into which I had unconsciously fallen by a hoarse voice at my elbow repeating a Pater Noster, and turning around, I beheld the jovial Friar of Copmanhurst, one hand grasping a huge oaken cudgel, the other ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... cudgel; brickbat; cheiropter, vampire; racket; (Slang) blow, stroke, buffet; (Slang) ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... 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

... developed with labour, and he was now able to swing all save the very heaviest hammers in the shop. He had never abated in his practice at arms, and every day when work was over, he and his master had a long bout together with cudgel or quarterstaff, sword or axe; Walter of course used light weapons, but so quick was he with them that Geoffrey Ward acknowledged that he needed to put out all his skill to hold his own with his pupil. But it was not alone with Geoffrey that Walter had an opportunity of learning ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... 'em out, for here we sit in justice: Give to each one a cudgel, a good cudgel: And now attend your sentence. That you are rogues, And mischievous base rascalls, (there's the point now) I ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Boro gueroneskey tem Big fellows' country, Northumberland Chohawniskey tem Witches' country, Lancashire Choko-mengreskey gav Shoemakers' town, Northampton Churi-mengreskey gav Cutlers' town, Sheffield Coro-mengreskey tem Potters' country, Staffordshire Cosht-killimengreskey tem Cudgel players' country, Cornwall Curo-mengreskey gav Boxers' town, Nottingham Dinelo tem Fools' country, Suffolk Giv-engreskey tem Farmers' country, Buckinghamshire Gry-engreskey gav Horsedealers' town, Horncastle Guyo-mengreskey tem Pudding-eaters' country, ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... caught up the slender cudgel dropped by Marcel in his flight for the stairs and was already ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... made Mannering start. She was full six feet high, wore a man's great-coat over the rest of her dress, had in her hand a goodly sloethorn cudgel, and in all points of equipment, except her petticoats, seemed rather masculine than feminine. Her dark elf-locks shot out like the snakes of the gorgon between an old-fashioned bonnet called a bongrace, heightening the singular effect of her strong and weather-beaten features, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... strange words, which in our modern times might have produced mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the magistrate's ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... Anthony gave a scathing review of the laws affecting married women, the control which they allowed the husband over the wife, children and property, making, however, no attack upon men but only upon laws. Each of the other speakers, all of whom were married, in turn took up the cudgel, and proceeded to tell how good her own husband was, and to say that if Miss Anthony only had a good husband she never would have made that speech, but each admitted that the men were better than the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... bawled; and in the midst of the singing Magdalene stuck her head out of the window. Beckmesser, thinking it was Eva, was encouraged to keep on, but David, who had come out at the rumpus, believed that Beckmesser was serenading Magdalene, and instantly became jealous. So out he rushed with a cudgel. The neighbours then began to come from their houses in their night-gowns and caps; some wearing red flannel about their heads and some in very short gowns, and all looking very funny. Meanwhile, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... 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 you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... obvious what manner of men they 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 they ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... 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 for ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... slavish subjection from the members of that travelling State, than the clerk hypocrites expect from these lay pulpits. Nay, they must not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired too; and that their lay-followers do sincerely, as a shirtless fellow with a cudgel under his arm doth a face-wringing ballad-singer, a water-bearer on the floor of a playhouse, a wide-mouthed poet that speaks nothing but blathers and bombast. Otherwise, for life and profession, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... eye cautiously fixed on the stepping-stones as she went along, when she was startled by a voice which sounded close beside her. On glancing round she saw on the opposite bank a boy standing with a huge twisted cudgel in his hand, brandishing it in a warlike attitude. He seemed to have suddenly appeared round one of the hillocks, and was now shouting excitedly, in his rough northern dialect, as ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... greeted the several contingencies and minor mishaps such a journey involved with plaintive oaths in broken English. Mr. Wesley Thompson, projected into an unfamiliar environment and among a—to him—strange manner of men, took up his evangelistic cudgel and administered shocked reproof. It was, in a way, practice for the tasks the Methodist Board of Home Missions had appointed him to perform. But if he failed to convict these two of sin, he convinced them of discourtesy. Even a rude voyageur has his code of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... effect, that the soul of a dog would feel pain immediately after having felt joy, though it were alone in the universe. I understand why a dog passes immediately from pleasure to pain when, being very hungry and eating a piece of bread, he is suddenly struck with a cudgel. But I cannot apprehend that his soul should be so framed that at the very moment of his being beaten he should feel pain though he were not beaten, and though he should continue to eat bread without any trouble or hindrance. Nor do I see how the spontaneity ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... taste, whether babyish or pathological, of which the objurgated culprit may be altogether innocent. If a composer plays with fire, he is fairly sure to burn some one's fingers, even if he successfully avoids burning his own. And anyhow it is waste of time, and worse, for us to cudgel our brains to fits of entirely unnecessary inventiveness when the composer has left his music unlabelled. We sometimes hear of children being encouraged to give verbal or dramatic expression of their own to instrumental music; that ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... Will keep their 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 windows it ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... threat were meant seriously—and she could see no reason why it should not be—she was in an awkward predicament. Ordinarily she had ready resource, a fertile genius for invention. Now her wits seemed to have deserted her. Cudgel her brains as she would, she could see no way out of the difficulty. To boldly state that the jewels had been entrusted to her by Eileen would involve opening up a fresh line of inquiry for the C.I.D. men that might have disastrous results. Nor was there any person who might bear out a story ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

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

... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... try once,' said he, 'but am old and was weak, and could only get my heels high enough to break the whiffletree, and besides lost my balance and fell down flat. Master then jumped down, and getting a cudgel struck me over the head, and I thought my troubles were over. This happened just before Mr. Ben Ham's house, and I should have been finished and ready for the crows, if he had not stepped out and told master not to strike again, if he did he would shake his liver out. That saved my life, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... and soon had the satisfaction of knowing that he had settled one of his assailants, by the mournful groans he heard. Only one man was now left to deal with, and it did not take long to disarm him. Seeing that he was alone, with his cudgel knocked spinning from his grasp, he started to run away. Douglas, however, sprang after him and managed to seize him by the tail of his coat. To this he held with a bulldog grip while the other struggled frantically to get away. Finding that his efforts were in vain, and ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... 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 speech ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... eye, 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 with half a fancy ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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

... his soul, and, leaving the sheep to go whither they would, he ran swiftly down the hill, and never stopped till he reached the castle gate. Here the porter, to whom the countess had given much gold, tried to stop him, but Bevis only knocked him down with his cudgel, and on into the hall he went, and there he beheld his mother and Sir Murdour feasting at the ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... Why, death, and nothing else but present death. With 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 ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... 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 those eight centuries ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... world of that old England—the maids of the Inn, the parish clerk, the two sportsmen, the hosts of the taverns, the beaux, the starveling authors—all alive; all (save the authors) full of beef and beer; a cudgel in every fist, every man ready for a brotherly bout at fisticuffs. What has become of it, the lusty old militant world? What will become of us, and why do we prefer to Fielding—a number of meritorious ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... 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

... he had lashed should resort to violence for revenge, he carried with ostentation a sturdy cudgel. It was a formidable weapon in hands like Churchill's, and Churchill was not molested. For Churchill was a man of great physical strength. He tells the world in the portrait he painted of himself of the vastness of his bones, of the strength of his muscles, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the poor animal tried to rear. I drew sword and dagger, and leaned forward to run this fellow through. As I made my thrust, my senses suddenly went out in a kind of fire-streaked darkness. As I afterwards learned, I had been struck on the back of the head with a loaded cudgel by one of the unseen men behind. When I came to myself I was lying on the earth in a little bushy hollow away from the road: my hands were tied behind me, and around each ankle was fastened a rope, of which one of my assailants held the loose end. These two fellows and ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... 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

... e.g. Stanford, the word is entered as of aboriginal origin, but many now hold that it is the English word wood mispronounced by aboriginal lips. L. E. Threlkeld, in his 'Australian Grammar,' at p. 10, enters it as a "barbarism "—"waddy, a cudgel." A 'barbarism,' with Threlkeld, often means no more than 'not in use on the Hunter River'; but in this case his remark may be ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... 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 himself with his sword, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... as at the end, I am yours ever, and not till summer ends and my nails fall out, and my breath breaks bubbles,—ought you to write thus having restricted me as you once did, and do still? You tie me like a Shrove-Tuesday fowl to a stake and then pick the thickest cudgel out of your lot, and at my head it goes—I wonder whether you remembered having predicted exactly the same horror once before. 'I was to see you—and you were to understand'—Do you? do you understand—my own friend—with that superiority in years, too! ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... my Bill on Paris,—excellent to him for trade of his own! What is to be done with such an Ass of Balaam? He has got the bit in his teeth, it would seem. Heavens, he too is capable of stopping short, careless of spur and cudgel; and miraculously speaking to a NEW Prophet [strange new "Revealer of the Lord's Will," in modern dialect], in this enlightened Eighteenth Century itself!—One thing the new Prophet, can do: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... the most resistance. He looked terrible, as he walked. He roared without knowing it. Boys caught hold of him, and he dragged them long distances. Once he stopped and flung off the crowd in the street. Just as he was about to escape, a blow from a cudgel fell on his head and knocked him down. He rose up again, half stunned, and staggered on, blows raining upon him, and the boys hanging like leeches ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... Valladolid, my master was within an ace of divulging his secret to a philosopher who knew nothing of it. I warrant you, I showed that gentleman the door, with a dose of cudgel ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

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

... night coming on, the thunder and the lightning and the waters rising amain, Giant Despair's apprehension of Christian and Hopeful, their dreadful bed in his dungeon from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, how they were famished with hunger and beaten with a grievous crab-tree cudgel till they were not able to turn, with many other sufferings too many and too terrible to be told which they endured till Saturday about midnight, when they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day;—John Bunyan is surely the best story-teller in all ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... the man Tom. "Gi'e him one for 'is nob, Jimmy." But as his nearer captor raised his cudgel, I sprang to ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... he hit you for?" asked the man from the dingle. He was exceedingly ragged, with a powerful frame, a lean brown face, and an oaken cudgel in his hand. His voice was very hoarse and rough, as is the case with those who live in the open air. "The bloke hit you," said he. "What did ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... his State as if it were a separate and independent nation, whose sons, in imitation of LaFayette, Kosciusko and DeKalb, were devoting their best blood to the maintenance of free government in a foreign land; while Taylor, incited thereto by this eulogy on Wisconsin, took up the cudgel for Kentucky, and dwelt enthusiastically on the gallantry of her men and the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... lose 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 which he displayed ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... made him a formidable antagonist in any rustic encounter, and in such he was frequently engaged, being of a very irascible temper, and turbulent disposition. He was clad in a holiday suit of dark-green serge, which fitted him well, and carried a nosegay in one hand, and a stout blackthorn cudgel in the other. This young man was James Device, son of Elizabeth, and some four or five years older than Alizon. He did not live with his mother in Whalley, but in Pendle Forest, near his old relative, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... beggar 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 inn, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... a capstan bar which he snatched up as a cudgel. Chivalry had taught him that a man should never reckon the odds when a woman appealed for succor. With a headlong rush he crossed the wharf and swung the hickory bar. The pirate dodged the blow and whipped out his dirk which slithered through Jack's shirt ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... for many generations of boys a book even more terrible than Caesar's Commentaries or the Aeneid of Virgil—the dull thud of a mysterious cudgel upon the shoulders of youth which you bore as courageously ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... therefore be other than an enemy of Dr Thorne. But he was a prudent, discreet man, with a long family, averse to professional hostilities, as knowing that he could make more by medical friends than medical foes, and not at all inclined to take up any man's cudgel to his own detriment. He had, of course, heard of that dreadful affront which had been put upon his friend, as had all the "medical world"—all the medical world at least of Barsetshire; and he had often expressed his sympathy with Dr Fillgrave ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... the Pasiegos, (52) are the best cudgel-players in Spain, and in the world. Francisco held in his hand part of a broomstick, which he had broken in the stable, whence he had just ascended. With the swiftness of lightning he foiled the stroke of Chaleco, and, in another moment, with a dexterous ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... 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

... says to 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; adieu to love, adieu to laughter, adieu ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... by the spring, and then, my dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we will walk and talk together 'amid these storm-reared temples of the gods.' I have felt a new man since I arrived here. Instead of having to 'cudgel my brains,' as we say, thoughts crowd upon me. This work will make ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... and great teeth yellow and ugly, and he was shod with hosen and shoon of ox-hide, bound with cords of bark up over the knee, and all about him a great cloak two-fold; and he leaned upon a grievous cudgel, and Aucassin came unto him, and was afraid ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... 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) in ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... the truth; but you are not quite at the truth yet, my lad; those apples are mine, and I'll trouble you to come down as fast as you please; when you're down we can then settle our accounts; and," continued the man, shaking his cudgel, "depend upon it you shall have ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... you afraid I shall make Fareham jealous, because I sing duets and cudgel these poor brains to make bouts rimes with De Malfort? Ah, child, how little those watchful eyes of yours have discovered the man's character! Fareham jealous! Why, at St. Germain he has seen me surrounded by adorers; the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... Adam of Wills!" said a stout woman, to one of the speakers; "thou wert ever a tough fighter; and the cudgel and ragged staff were as glib in thine hands as a beggar's pouch on alms-days. Show thy mettle, man. I'll spice thee a jug of barley-drink, an' thou be for the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... 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

... I move a deeper feeling. The papers all over the State are discussing pro and con. The whole thing is working just right. If Beecher is chosen delegate at large to your Constitutional Convention, I think the word male will go out before his vigorous cudgel. I do not want to stay here after the 4th, but Wood and Harry have arranged other meetings up to the 18th or 20th of May, so that we shan't be back even ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the arms of the mill round and round, there was no chance to get out. Not that they did not all cudgel their brains within the next hour to that end. There were enough suggestions made to lead to a dozen escapes; only—none of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... tongue as the throstle's note; Quick in dance as thought can be; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout, Oh, he lies ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

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

... as the throstle's note, Quick in dance as thought can be, Deft his tabour, cudgel stout; O! he lies by the willow-tree: My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... that Mr. Beecher did not write this article. And further still, that he did not inspire it. And further still, the Ministerial Union of Elmira did not write it. And finally, the Ministerial Union did not ask me to write it. No, I have taken up this cudgel in defense of the Ministerial Union of Elmira solely from a love of justice. Without solicitation, I have constituted myself the champion of the Ministerial Union of Elmira, and it shall be a labor of love with me to conduct their side of a quarrel ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Geoffrey before he heard the sound of a footstep in the loft beside him. He grasped his cudgel firmly and leaned slightly forward. For ten minutes there was quiet within, and Geoffrey guessed that the traitor was writing the missive he was about to send to the enemy; then the footstep approached the window, and a moment later a cross-bow was thrust out. A glance at it sufficed ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... the master, "each a different way. Go teach the common brotherhood of man. Preach Dharma, preach the law of perfect love, One law for high and low, for rich and poor. Teach all to shun the cudgel and the sword, And treat with kindness every living thing. Teach them to shun all theft and craft and greed, All bitter thoughts, and false and slanderous speech That severs friends and stirs up strife and hate. Revere your own, revile ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... club, n. cudgel, bludgeon, truncheon, bat, mace, staff, shillalah, waddy, bandy, knobkerry; society, coterie, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... to tell the truth, Ralph, old chap, the fact which is puzzling me most of all at this moment is that extraordinary foreboding of evil which you confessed to me the day before yesterday. You had your suspicions aroused, somehow. Cudgel your brains, and think what induced that ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... Possibly the same argument might be raised in defence of any historian, in that the public is virtually his employer. Here, however, reasoning by analogy fails, for the public is a very large body, and will seldom take up the cudgel in defence of any single individual. This is a question, however, which should be settled on the ground of right, not of expediency. But even if the right be left out of account, the expedient in this ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... 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 ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... contend with." He seems to have been altogether indifferent to athletic exercises; for though he gave more prizes than any one else to be contended for by dramatists, flute players, harp players, and even by rhapsodists,[397] and though he delighted in all manner of hunting and cudgel playing, he never seems to have taken any interest in the contests of boxing or the pankratium.[398] When ambassadors from the King of Persia arrived in Macedonia, Philip was absent, and Alexander entertained them. His engaging manners greatly charmed them, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... the neighbourhood of Plymouth to work at his shoemaking business, and while at Cawsand he won a prize for cudgel-playing, in which he seems to have been an adept. While living there, he had nearly lost his life in a smuggling exploit which he had joined, partly induced by the love of adventure, and partly by the love of gain, for his regular wages were not more than eight shillings a-week. One ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... 'neath a dusty cloak and kept his white head down-bent and who now reached out a hand to grope and grope for the staff that lay near; wherefore Beltane took hold upon this hand and raised the white-haired traveller, and thereafter put the cudgel in ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... the tribune was selected for his military qualities and experience: none was appointed to this important office, "nisi barb plen" The centurion's truncheon, [Footnote: Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Centurion's dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or cudgelling the inferior soldiers: "propterea vitis in manum data," says Salmasius, "verberando scilicet militi qui deliquisset." We are no patrons ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... The cudgel in my nieve did shake, Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake, When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick—quack— Amang the springs, Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes him with a switch, a cowhide, or a whip, twenty years afterward, if he gets an opportunity; but readily forgets blows, however severe, inflicted on him with the fist, a cudgel, or a tomahawk. A remarkable ethnological peculiarity of the prognathous race is, that any deserved punishment, inflicted on them with a switch, cowhide, or whip, puts them into good humor with themselves ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... not combat a leopardess; Ithuriel's spear glances pointless from a rhinoceros' hide. To match what is low and beat it, you must stoop, and soil your hands to cut a cudgel rough and ready. She did not see this; and seeing it, would not have lowered herself ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... me sorely. I would have consoled her, I would have bidden her have no fear, assuring her that I would save her father. But for my own ends, I curbed the mood. I would use this as a cudgel to shatter her obstinacy, and I prayed that God might forgive me if I did aught that a gentleman should account unworthy. My need was urgent, my love all-engrossing; winning her meant winning life and happiness, and already I had sacrificed so much. Her cry rang still in my ears, "It cannot ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault. This he calls sport-royal. He thinks it as good as cudgel-playing or single-stick, or anything else that has life in it. He likes the cut and thrust, the falls, bruises, and dry blows of an argument: as to any good or useful results that may come of the amicable settling of it, any one is welcome to them for him. The amusement ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... present to his own mind. It is borne in upon him that he is "Christmas," and must escape from the City of Destruction. He would like nothing better, in his present mood, than to undertake the whole Pilgrimage, and, as it were, cudgel his way through; and since it is late in the day for this, he chooses the short cut by the gallows, as the next best thing. But he is, above all, desirous to be taken while the penitent fit is on him: and urgently sets forth those ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... and Junkie brought up the rear. On nearing the field the first wrenched a stake out of a fence; the second caught up a rake, that had been left by the haymakers; and the last, unscrewing the butt of his rod, broke the line, and flourished the weapon as a cudgel. They all three leaped into the field one after another, and bore courageously down on the bull, being well accustomed to deal with animals ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... '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 ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... to them; upon this lay a medley of flocks and feathers sewed up together in a large bag, (for I am confident it was not a tick) but so ill ordered that the knobs stuck out on each side like a crab-tree cudgel. He had need to have flesh enough that lyeth on one of them, otherwise the second night would wear out his bones.—Let us now walk into the kitchen and observe their provision. And here we found a most terrible execution ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... gives— broke forth in him, fresh as he was from a brutal interview with the financial clique whom he had given the chance to make much money, and who were now, for a few thousand dollars, trying to cudgel him out of his one opportunity to regain his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... doubling carelessly down the two steps from the door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his cudgel as if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly greeted his visitor. But the other, instead of returning the salutation, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... an editorial calling attention to these facts. The Pullman Company paid no attention to it, but the railroad journals did. With one accord they seized the cudgel which Bok had raised, and a series of hammerings began. The Pullman conductors began to report to their division chiefs that the passengers were criticising the cars, and the company at last woke up. It issued ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... Evans, was known; and so Goldsmith thought he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had asked Johnson's advice about the matter, he would no doubt have been told to pay no heed at all to anonymous scurrility—certainly not to attempt to reply to it with a cudgel. When Johnson heard that Foote meant to "take him off," he turned to Davies and asked him what was the common price of an oak stick; but an oak stick in Johnson's hands, and an oak stick in Goldsmith's Lands, were two different things. However, to the bookseller's shop the indignant poet proceeded, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... kitchen door was banged open and Stephen stood in the doorway. Stephen's shirt was open at the neck, his hair waved wildly over his forehead, he stood, enormous, with his legs apart, his eyes shining, blood coming from a cut in his cheek, and in one of his hands was a thick cudgel. Standing there in the doorway, he might have been some ancient Hercules, ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... the hen did not stir a foot; and Vardiello, seeing that she had something of the donkey in her, after crying "Hish, hish," began to stamp with his feet; and after stamping with his feet to throw his cap at her, and after the cap a cudgel which hit her just upon the pate, and made her ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... 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 ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... ahead, hot foot for Edinburgh by the way of the Pentland Hills. By eight o'clock they had word of them - a shepherd had seen four men "uncoly mishandled" go by in the last hour. "That's yin a piece," says Clem, and swung his cudgel. "Five o' them!" says Hob. "God's death, but the faither was a man! And him drunk!" And then there befell them what my author termed "a sair misbegowk," for they were overtaken by a posse of mounted neighbours come to aid in the pursuit. Four sour faces looked on the reinforcement. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... must, find some way by which to make amends for the catastrophe she had so ingenuously engineered. To the discovery of a method for retrieving her error, she gave her mind with an almost frenzied concentration; but the effort was fruitless. Cudgel her wearied brain as she would, it could not make pace to the goal she sought. When, after a sleepless night, she rose, it was with the maze of disaster still unthreaded. Her usual ingenuity of resource was become impotent. Raging ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... are pugilists or cudgel-fighters, that boast of their bottom and of the claret ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... do 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; that ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished my assistance to prove of much avail. Shouting, therefore, as well to intimidate the scoundrels as to let the person attacked know that there was succour at hand, I sprang upon the man who held the cudgel, and, seizing his uplifted arm, succeeded in averting the coming blow from the head of the intended victim, who, ignorant of the impending danger, was making most furious thrusts at his assailant with the point of his umbrella, a novel mode of attack, which seemed to perplex and annoy that individual ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... Mine 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

... fellow?" demanded Turan, seeking to cudgel his brains for the source of this man's knowledge, ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... completed without some noise; and, as a consequence, a head appeared from beneath the archway to see what was going on outside. It was the head of the treacherous town servant; and Roller promptly dealt it so severe a blow with a stout cudgel, that its owner instantly drew back with a yell of pain. Some minutes of ominous silence then passed, in which the enemy were doubtless busy taking counsel as to what should be done next. Then they suddenly burst forth with loud shouts and ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... harmless 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 ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... the neighbourhood and earn half-a-crown by teaching the young men and maids to dance. By these methods he had acquired immense riches, which he used to squander[177] away at back-sword, quarter-staff, and cudgel-play, in which he took great pleasure, and challenged all the country. You will say it is no wonder if Bull and Frog should be jealous of this fellow. "It is not impossible," says Frog to Bull, "but this old rogue will take the management of the ...
— English Satires • Various



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



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com