cogs

Noun (1)

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
4. 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.
5. One of the rough pillars of stone or coal left to support the roof of a mine.

Noun (2)

cog (plural cogs)

1. (historical) 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

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