Word.ws English Dictionary

cudgelling

cudgelling 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

cudgelling (plural cudgellings)

  1. A beating with a cudgel.

Forms of cudgelling

pluralcudgellings

Phrases with cudgelling

Questions about cudgelling

What does cudgelling mean?
Cudgelling means a beating with a cudgel.
What is cudgelling the present participle and gerund of?
Cudgelling is the present participle and gerund of cudgel.
What part of speech is cudgelling?
Cudgelling is a noun.
What is the plural of cudgelling?
The plural of cudgelling is cudgellings.

Words near cudgelling in the dictionary

  1. cudgelled
  2. cudgelled one's brain
  3. cudgelled one's brains
  4. cudgeller
  5. cudgellers
  6. cudgelling
  7. cudgelling one's brain
  8. cudgelling one's brains
  9. cudgellings
  10. cudgels
  11. cudgels one's brain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cudgelling (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: “cudgelling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cudgelling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.