bludgeon

plural bludgeons

1. A short, heavy club, often of wood, which is thicker or loaded at one end.

   We smashed the radio with a steel bludgeon.

2. figurativelySomething used to coerce someone.

   In our country Marxism is neither a philosophy nor a scientific method. It is a bludgeon. It falls into the category of police power.

   1982, Boris Pasternak, translated by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin, “Diary”, in Elliott Mossman, editor, The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910-1954, New York, N.Y.; London: Helen and Kurt Wolff/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, section IX, page 303

   2 more examples

   Because it could be used as a bludgeon to force industries to accept any terms, however unreasonable or unfair, the Overton-Russell amendment ought to be discarded by the House of Representatives.

   1940 August 29, “Action in the Senate”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

   In a cultural moment when faith is often used as a bludgeon for our political and ideological enemies, we need space to talk about belief and practice with nuance, curiosity and reflection.

   2021 August 22, Tish Harrison Warren, “Why We Need to Start Talking About God”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2021

present singular third person bludgeons · participle present bludgeoning · participle past bludgeoned · past bludgeoned

1. transitiveTo strike or hit with something hard, usually on the head; to club.

   The apprehended rioter was bludgeoned to death.

   2 more examples

   They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children or die summarily by some other act of God.

   1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168

   Thomas Briggs, a senior bank clerk in the City, lived in Hackney, and on 9 July 1864 he was returning there by train from Fenchurch Street after a Saturday spent at work when he was bludgeoned to death in a first-class carriage, probably by a young German tailor named Franz Müller. (Let's hope it was Müller, because he was hanged for it.) And so Briggs was an all-round pioneer: an early commuter and the very first victim of a railway murder.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 16–17

   Synonyms: cudgel

2. figurativelytransitiveTo coerce someone, as if with a bludgeon.

   Their favorite method was bludgeoning us with the same old arguments in favor of their opinions.

   1 more example

   Gianna Parasini: You've never worked in the corporate world, have you, Commander? You can't bludgeon through bureaucracy. Shepard: I can bludgeon pretty hard.

   2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Noveria

   Synonyms: harass, pummel