cog

Meanings

Plural: cogs

Noun

• a subordinate who performs an important but routine function
  • "he was a small cog in a large machine"
• tooth on the rim of gear wheel
• A tooth on a gear.
• A gear; especially, a cogwheel.
• An unimportant individual in a greater system.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• A trick or deception; a falsehood.
• Alternative form of cogue (“wooden vessel for milk”).

Verb

• roll steel ingots
• join pieces of wood with cogs
• To furnish with a cog or cogs.
• Of an electric motor or generator, to snap preferentially to certain positions when not energized.
• To load (a die) so that it can be used to cheat.
• To cheat; to play or gamble fraudulently.
• To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat.
• To plagiarize.
• To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off.

Synonyms

sprocket