cog
UK /kɒɡ/ · US /kɔɡ/ noun, verb
Forms cogs cogging cogged
- noun A tooth on a gear.
- noun A gear; especially, a cogwheel.
- noun An unimportant individual in a greater system. “just a cog in the machine”
- noun (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.
- noun (mining) One of the rough pillars of stone or coal left to support the roof of a mine.
- verb To furnish with a cog or cogs.
- verb (intransitive) Of an electric motor or generator, to snap preferentially to certain positions when not energized.
- noun (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.
- noun (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.
- noun (by extension) A small fishing boat.
- noun A trick or deception; a falsehood.
- verb To load (a die) so that it can be used to cheat.
- verb To cheat; to play or gamble fraudulently.
- verb To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat.
- verb To plagiarize.
- verb To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off. “to cog in a word”
Synonyms
Etymology
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.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat. [R.]
- verb To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; as, to cog in a word; to palm off. [R.]
- verb To deceive; to cheat; to play false; to lie; to wheedle; to cajole.
- noun A trick or deception; a falsehood. Wm. Watson.
Etymology [Cf. W. coegio to make void, to beceive, from coeg empty, vain, foolish. Cf. Coax, v. t.]
Etymology [Cf. Sw. kugge a cog, or W. cocos the cogs of a wheel.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cog”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details