shillelagh
Any cudgel, whether or not of Irish origin.
Definitions
Any cudgel, whether or not of Irish origin.
It beats all your guns and your rifles, / For it goes off whene'er you desire, / And it's sure to hit just what it aims at, / For shillelaghs they never miss fire.
“music is either named Sunny Day or Everybody Grab Your Shillelagh 'Cause We 'Bout to do "Da Tom Selleck" and you don't get an inbetween”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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(Ireland) A wooden (traditionally blackthorn (sloe) wood) club ending with a large knob.
[T]he stem of a stout young oak or ash tree, into the end of which, where the roots had been rounded off, a quantity of molten lead was poured, making the shillelagh more formidable in such hands than a sword would have been – much …
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- walloper76%
(Ireland) A cudgel, a shillelagh.
- alpeen71%
(Ireland) A thick, knotted club or shillelagh.
- alpeen66%
An Irish word for a thick, knotted wooden stick used as a club or walking stick — closely related to the shillelagh. Typically cut from blackthorn or a similarly dense wood and used historically both as a walking aid and a weapon in faction fights or personal disputes. The alpeen appears in Irish folklore, ballads, and 19th-century literature. It carries connotations of rural, traditional Ireland and a readiness to settle disputes physically. Rarely used in contemporary everyday speech but well understood in Irish cultural and historical contexts.
- shot with a shovel64%
(Ireland) Severely admonished; castigated.