Careful Words

cudgel (n.)

cudgel (v.)

Some have been beaten till they know

What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow;

Some kick'd until they can feel whether

A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 221.

  Cudgel thy brains no more about it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.