Word.ws English Dictionary

bludgeoning

bludgeoning is the present participle and gerund of bludgeon.

Meaning of bludgeon

Verb

bludgeon (third-person singular simple present bludgeons, present participle bludgeoning, simple past and past participle bludgeoned)

  1. (transitive) To strike or hit with something hard, usually on the head; to club.
    • The apprehended rioter was bludgeoned to death.
    Synonyms:
    cudgel
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To coerce someone, as if with a bludgeon.
    • Their favorite method was bludgeoning us with the same old arguments in favor of their opinions.
    Synonyms:
    harass, pummel

See all 4 meanings of bludgeon

Noun

bludgeoning (plural bludgeonings)

  1. An assault with a club or similar weapon.
    • In the fell clutch of circumstance / I have not winced nor cried aloud. / Under the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed.1888, William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”, in A Book of Verses
    • There was a motor car behind them now and it blasted into the truck noise and the dust with its klaxon again and again; then flashed on lights that showed the dust like a solid yellow cloud and surged past them in a whining rise of gears and a demanding, threatening, bludgeoning of klaxoning.1940 October 21, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 42, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, →OCLC; republished London: Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, 1949 (13th...

Forms of bludgeoning

pluralbludgeonings

Questions about bludgeoning

What does bludgeoning mean?
Bludgeoning means an assault with a club or similar weapon.
What is bludgeoning the present participle and gerund of?
Bludgeoning is the present participle and gerund of bludgeon.
What part of speech is bludgeoning?
Bludgeoning is a noun.
What is the plural of bludgeoning?
The plural of bludgeoning is bludgeonings.

Words near bludgeoning in the dictionary

  1. bludged
  2. bludgeon
  3. bludgeoned
  4. bludgeoner
  5. bludgeoners
  6. bludgeoning
  7. bludgeonings
  8. bludgeonman
  9. bludgeonry
  10. bludgeons
  11. bludger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bludgeoning (page history and authors); bludgeon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bludgeoning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bludgeoning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.