cog

plural cogs

1. A tooth on a gear.
2. A gear; especially, a cogwheel.

   She said: " We're not wasting time. While the cogs of Parliament continue to whir, we will continue to work on the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy, the national transport integrated strategy, and our accessibility roadmap.

   2025 November 12, David Stubbings, “Rail reform bill: pledge to rebuild trust of passengers”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 6

3. An unimportant individual in a greater system.

   just a cog in the machine

   3 more examples

   All the old problems, the stale ones, both personal and general, had been solved by one mighty slash. Heaven alone knew as yet what others might arise - and it looked as though there would be plenty of them - but they would be new. I was emerging as my own master, and no longer a cog.

   1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 60

   1976, Norman Denny (English translation), Victor Hugo (original French), Les Misérables ‘There are twenty-five of us, but they don’t reckon I’m worth anything. I’m just a cog in the machine.’

   1988, David Mamet, Speed-the-Plow Your boss tells you “take initiative,” you best guess right—and you do, then you get no credit. Day-in, … smiling, smiling, just a cog.

4. businessA projection or tenon at the end of a beam designed to fit into a matching opening of another piece of wood to form a joint.
5. businessOne of the rough pillars of stone or coal left to support the roof of a mine.

present singular third person cogs · participle present cogging · participle past cogged · past cogged

1. To furnish with a cog or cogs.
2. intransitiveOf an electric motor or generator, to snap preferentially to certain positions when not energized.

plural cogs

1. historicalA partially clinker-built, flat-bottomed, square-rigged mediaeval ship of burden or war, with a round, bulky hull and a single mast, typically 15 to 25 meters in length, in use from ca. 1150 to 1500.

   1 more example

   The name of the ship was Dawn Treader. She was only a little bit of a thing compared with one of our ships, or even with the cogs, dromonds, carracks and galleons which Narnia had owned when Lucy and Edmund had reigned there under Peter as the High King, for nearly all navigation had died out in the reigns of Caspian's ancestors.

   1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2. historicalThe hypothetical precursor ship type of the above said to be in use during the early Middle Ages, variously alleged to be Frisian or Scandinavian.
3. broadlyA small fishing boat.

plural cogs

1. A trick or deception; a falsehood.

   False suggestions, shamelesse cogs, and impious forgeries.

   1602, William Watson, Quodlibets Religious and State

present singular third person cogs · participle present cogging · participle past cogged · past cogged

1. To load (a die) so that it can be used to cheat.
2. To cheat; to play or gamble fraudulently.

   1726, Jonathan Swift (debated), Molly Mog For guineas in other men's breeches, / Your gamesters will palm and will cog.

3. To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat.

   I'll mountebank their loves, Cog their hearts from them.

   c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

4. To plagiarize.

   Coming to journalism, how many of us have not been guilty at some stage of 'cogging' from other articles, […]

   2006, Verve: The Spirit of Today's Woman, volume 14, numbers 4-6, page 51

   2 more examples

   […] his themes and exercises were in constant demand for what we called cogging and American students rather grandly called plagiarization. Shakespeare and Eliot plagiarized; we grimly cogged in the early morning-oh, […]

   1979, Tri-Quarterly, numbers 46-47, page 273

   I wasn't able to translate two verses in Virgil or Homer , without “ cogging " from some fellow - student ; but I was eternally repeating passages from the poems of Byron , Moore , and Scott ; while I gloried in the soul - stirring ...

   1879, Dennis O'Sullivan, The Stirring Adventures of Corp'l Morgan Rattler, F. Tousey, →OCLC, page 8

5. To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off.

   to cog in a word

   1 more example

   October 3, 1718, John Dennis, letter to S. T. , Esq; On the Deceitfulness of Rumour Fustian tragedies […] have […] been cogg'd upon the town for Master-pieces.

plural cogs

1. alternativeAlternative form of cogue (“wooden vessel for milk”).

plural cogs

1. abbreviationinitialismnatural sciencesInitialism of center of gravity

plural COGs

1. abbreviationinitialismnatural sciencesInitialism of center of gravity.
2. abbreviationinitialismastronomyInitialism of cluster of galaxies
3. abbreviationnauticalAbbreviation of course over ground.

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Church of God: numerous, mostly unrelated Christian denominations.

plural CoGs

1. abbreviationinitialismnatural sciencesInitialism of center of gravity.