cog
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Tooth on the rim of gear wheel.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kawgIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɔɡ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Tooth on the rim of gear wheel
A gear; especially, a cogwheel.
An unimportant individual in a greater system.
A trick or deception; a falsehood.
by extension
A small fishing boat.
A small round wooden vessel for holding milk.
verb
To furnish with a cog or cogs.
To cheat; to play or gamble fraudulently.
To load (a die) so that it can be used to cheat.
To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat.
To obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off.
intransitive
Of an electric motor or generator, to snap preferentially to certain positions when not energized.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Tooth on the rim of gear wheel
Used this way, cog is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use cog
- “He was a small cog in a large machine.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: tooth on the rim of gear wheel
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.