Word.ws English Dictionary

cudgeling

cudgeling is the present participle and gerund of cudgel.

Meaning of cudgel

Verb

cudgel (third-person singular simple present cudgels, present participle (US) cudgeling or (UK) cudgelling, simple past and past participle (US) cudgeled or (UK) cudgelled)

  1. To strike with a cudgel.
    • The officer was violently cudgeled down in the midst of the rioters.
  2. To exercise (one's wits or brains) in an effort to force a memory or solution; to rack (one's mind).
    • “Most remarkable,” murmured Tarzan, cudgeling his brain for some pretext upon which to turn the subject.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 102

See all 5 meanings of cudgel

Noun

cudgeling (plural cudgelings)

  1. A beating with a cudgel.

Forms of cudgeling

pluralcudgelings

Phrases with cudgeling

Questions about cudgeling

What does cudgeling mean?
Cudgeling means a beating with a cudgel.
What is cudgeling the present participle and gerund of?
Cudgeling is the present participle and gerund of cudgel.
What part of speech is cudgeling?
Cudgeling is a noun.
What is the plural of cudgeling?
The plural of cudgeling is cudgelings.

Words near cudgeling in the dictionary

  1. cudgeled
  2. cudgeled one's brain
  3. cudgeled one's brains
  4. cudgeler
  5. cudgelers
  6. cudgeling
  7. cudgeling one's brain
  8. cudgeling one's brains
  9. cudgelings
  10. cudgelled
  11. cudgelled one's brain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cudgeling (page history and authors); cudgel (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: “cudgeling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cudgeling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.