Cudgelling [verb]

Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into.

For a second he drummed on the table, clearly cudgelling his brains.

The first is revenge for the wholesome cudgelling which the captain bestowed upon him.

All that day I lay in the dungeon cudgelling my brains for the reason of this new and inexplicable punishment.

They walked away, the little woman still sighing, her escort cudgelling his brain to think of something to say to console her.

When I refused everything, he sat down heavily on the sofa, frowning, and angrily cudgelling his wits for something to sayin vain.

Do I not myself know that I am at this moment in want of a dozen pages, and that I am sick with cudgelling my brains to find them?

He had been in vain cudgelling his brain to explain to himself in what possible way the mate had contrived to discover his secret.

That to which he was most wedded was a plan for meeting Walter Marrable and cudgelling him pretty well to death.

He had by dint of cudgelling his brains just thought of the Southampton—St Malo service.