Cudgeling [verb]

If anybody asked her a question she answered simply without cudgeling her brains for any wise or witty reply.

Edouard was in despair, and Lampin was cudgeling his brains, swearing that they should not take him alive.

He was surprised to find that by cudgeling his memory he had no need to call upon imagination to furnish interesting details.

Thus his research becomes a cudgeling of the brain, an introspective speculation.

She lay awake nearly all night, vainly cudgeling her brains for some plan by which to deliver her father from his confinement.

Governor Francis Nicholson in 1690, "gave prizes to those that should excell in riding, running, wrestling and cudgeling."

Davy screwed up his eyebrows as though he might be cudgeling his brain to remember.

Winton walked back to the station at the heels of his captor, cudgeling his brain to devise some means of getting word to Adams.

Mullins began to appreciate the situation, and he was cudgeling his brains for an explanation.

The man was cudgeling his brains for an excuse whereby he might carry her off in triumph to the Bois.