clubbed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of club.

   Rioters clubbed the fallen man until bystanders intervened.

   The suspect had been clubbed over the head and left in an alley.

   Note

   One spelling serves every meaning of the verb club, with the b doubled before -ed. Something can be struck with a club, beaten by a wide margin, out at nightclubs or chipping in toward a shared expense. Only the transitive meanings form a passive: a man or a rival team can be clubbed. The joining, nightclub and cost-sharing senses take have alone. Before a noun it shades into the club-shaped adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having the thick, rounded shape of a club, or held and wielded like one.

   Most butterflies have slender antennae that are clubbed at the tip.

   He swung the clubbed stick at the attacker.

   Similarclavate, claviform

   Oppositetapered

   Note

   An old adjective, already Middle English clubbyd, made from club and -ed. John Skelton mocks a woman's legs in The Tunning of Elinour Rumming (before 1529) as "myghty pestels and clubbed." That is the image of thickness gathered at one end. The Latinate equivalents are clavate and claviform. Clubbed is the plain English choice and can be graded as more clubbed or most clubbed.

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