Bludgeon is first attested in the mid-18th century in the sense of a short heavy club; of unknown origin, with no established cognates or convincing etymology. The history must be left partly open, preserving the uncertainty rather than forcing a single unsupported ancestry. Used as a noun and verb, bludgeon now means "a short heavy club; to strike repeatedly or to coerce forcefully", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in derived forms such as bludgeoning and bludgeoner. That uncertainty is part of the entry: the safest account is the attested form and the limited comparisons preserved with it.