cog
/kɒɡ/US/kɔɡ/
cog noun: a tooth on a gear. Also the alternative form of cogue.
Noun (1)
cog (plural cogs)
- A tooth on a gear.
- 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
- An unimportant individual in a greater system.
- just a cog in the machine
- 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
- A 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.
- One of the rough pillars of stone or coal left to support the roof of a mine.
Verb (1)
cog (third-person singular simple present cogs, present participle cogging, simple past and past participle cogged)
- To furnish with a cog or cogs.
- Of an electric motor or generator, to snap preferentially to certain positions when not energized.
Noun (2)
cog (plural cogs)
- A 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.
- 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...1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The hypothetical precursor ship type of the above said to be in use during the early Middle Ages, variously alleged to be Frisian or Scandinavian.
- A small fishing boat.
Noun (3)
cog (plural cogs)
Verb (2)
cog (third-person singular simple present cogs, present participle cogging, simple past and past participle cogged)
- To load (a die) so that it can be used to cheat.
- To cheat; to play or gamble fraudulently.
- For guineas in other men's breeches, / Your gamesters will palm and will cog.1726, Jonathan Swift (debated), Molly Mog
- 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]...
- I'll mountebank their loves,
- To plagiarize.
- […] 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
- 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
- To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off.
- to cog in a word
- 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.
Noun (4) capitalized: COG
COG (plural COGs)
- Initialism of center of gravity.
- Initialism of cluster of galaxies
- Abbreviation of course over ground.
Proper noun capitalized: COG
COG
Noun (5) capitalized: CoG
CoG (plural CoGs)
- Initialism of center of gravity.
Also used as
cog is also the alternative form of cogue.
cog is also the initialism of center of gravity.
cog meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
cog in Hindi
- कॉग
cog in Marathi
- कॉग
cog in Urdu
- کاگ
cog in Bengali
- কোগ, কগ, কোগ করার জন্য
More languagesFewer languages
- cog in Telugu
- కోగ్
- cog in Malayalam
- കോഗ്
- cog in Kannada
- ಕೋಗ್, ಕಾಗ್
- cog in Punjabi
- ਕੋਗ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਕੌਗ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- cog in Gujarati
- કોગ, કોગ કરવા માટે, કોગ કરવા
- cog in Odia
- କୋଗ୍, କୋଗ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ, କୋଗ୍ କରିବାକୁ
- cog in Nepali
- कोग गर्न, टु कोग
- cog in Indonesian
- gerigi, nyamuk
- cog in Thai
- ฟันเฟือง fan-fʉʉang
Examples of cog in a sentence
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:cog fog.
- A cog is a toothed wheel.
- Cog is an artificially intelligent computer that is trying to learn about the world. . . .
Forms of cog
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cogs |
| plural | COGs |
| plural | CoGs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cogs |
| present participle | cogging |
| past participle | cogged |
| past | cogged |
Origin of cog
Inherited from Middle English cogge, from Old Norse *kogge, *koggr (see Old Swedish kogge, kogger), from Proto-Germanic *kuggō (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *gugā (“hump, ball”), from *gēw- (“to bend, arch”). Compare Lithuanian gugà (“pommel, hump, hill”). Cognates includes: Swedish kugg, kugge (“cog tooth”), Norwegian kugg (“cog”). The meaning of “cog” in carpentry derives from association with a tooth on a cogwheel. Compare Old Swedish koggavidher (“cog wood”), “wood reserved for a millwheel”. See also dialectal English cag (“stump”), keg; Old Norse kaggi (“keg”) + -gi (diminutive suffix), from the Germanic base *kagô (“bush, branch, stalk, stump”); also found in Bavarian Kag (“the stalk or stem of a cabbage”); dialectal Swedish kage (“treestump; piece of wood; post”), kagg or kagge (“scythe handle”); Norwegian Nynorsk kage or kagge (“low lying bush, small tree”), dialectal kagg (“scythe handle”); Old English ċeacga (“broom, furze, gorse”), whence English chag (“branch”), also Old English cyċġel, English cudgel (“knotty club”). The ultimate origin could be related to English cog (“cargo boat”) (Dutch kogge), probably named for its “round swollen” appearance.
From Middle English cogge, from Middle Dutch kogge, cogghe (modern kogge), from Proto-Germanic *kuggō, from Proto-Indo-European *gugā (“hump, ball”) (compare Lithuanian gugà (“pommel, hump, hill”)), from *gēw- (“to bend, arch”). See etymology 1 above.
Uncertain. Both verb and noun appear first in 1532.
Words formed from cog
Phrases with cog
Words that rhyme with cog
Questions about cog
- What does cog mean?
- Cog means a tooth on a gear.
- What is cog in Hindi?
- Cog in Hindi is कॉग. See Cog meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is cog?
- Cog can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cog?
- Cog is pronounced /kɒɡ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of cog?
- The plural of cog is cogs.
Words near cog in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cog (page history and authors); COG (page history and authors); CoG (page history and authors); cog (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cog (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cog.wav.
Cite this entry: “cog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.