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Cudgel One’s Brains (To)

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To make a painful effort to remember or understand something. The idea is from taking a stick to beat a dull boy under the notion that dulness is the result of temper or inattention.

“Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with heating.”—Shakespeare: Hamlet, v. 1.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Cucking-stool (The)
Cuckold
Cuckold King (The)
Cuckold’s Point
Cuckoo
Cuckoo (A)
Cuckoo Oats and Woodcock Hay
Cuckoo - Spit
Cucumber Time
Cuddy
Cudgel One’s Brains (To)
Cudgels
Cue
Cuffy
Cui bono?
Cuirass
Cuishes
Cul de Sac (French)
Culdees
Cullis
Cully