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cog

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: COG

Translingual

Symbol

cog

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Chong.

See also

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

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.

Noun

cog (plural cogs)

  2. A tooth on a gear.
  4. A gear; especially, a cogwheel.
    • 2025 November 12, David Stubbings, “Rail reform bill: pledge to rebuild trust of passengers”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 6:
      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.
  5. An unimportant individual in a greater system.
    just a cog in the machine
    • 1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 60:
      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.
    • 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.
  6. (carpentry) 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.
  7. (mining) One of the rough pillars of stone or coal left to support the roof of a mine.
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

cog (third-person singular simple present cogs, present participle cogging, simple past and past participle cogged)

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

Etymology 2

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

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.

Noun

cog (plural cogs)

  2. (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.
    • 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
      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.
  3. (historical) 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.
  4. (by extension) A small fishing boat.
Translations

Etymology 3

Uncertain. Both verb and noun appear first in 1532.

Noun

cog (plural cogs)

  1. A trick or deception; a falsehood.
    • 1602, William Watson, Quodlibets Religious and State:
      False suggestions, shamelesse cogs, and impious forgeries.
Translations

Verb

cog (third-person singular simple present cogs, present participle cogging, simple past and past participle 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.
  4. To plagiarize.
    • 1979, Tri-Quarterly, numbers 46-47, page 273:
      […] 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, […]
    • 2006, Verve: The Spirit of Today's Woman, volume 14, numbers 4-6, page 51:
      Coming to journalism, how many of us have not been guilty at some stage of 'cogging' from other articles, […]
    • 1879, Dennis O'Sullivan, The Stirring Adventures of Corp'l Morgan Rattler‎, F. Tousey, →OCLC, page 8:
      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 ...
  5. 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.
Translations

Etymology 4

Noun

cog (plural cogs)

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

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