cog

Meanings

Noun

• A tooth on a gear.
• A gear; 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 ship of burden, or war with a round, bulky hull.
• A small fishing boat.
• A trick or deception; a falsehood.
• Alternative of cogue

Verb

• To furnish with a cog or cogs.
• 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 obtrude or thrust in, by falsehood or deception; to palm off.

Origin

• From Middle English cogge, from Old Norse (compare Norwegian kugg ("cog"), Swedish kugg ("cog, tooth")), from Proto-Germanic *kuggō (compare Dutch kogge ("cogboat"), German Kock), from Proto-Indo-European *gugā ("hump, ball") (compare Lithuanian gugà ("pommel, hump, hill")), from *gēw-.
• The meaning of “cog” in carpentry derives from association with a tooth on a cogwheel.
• From Middle English cogge, from Middle Dutch kogge, cogghe (modern kogge), from Proto-Germanic *kuggō (compare German Kock ("cogboat"), Norwegian kugg ("cog (gear tooth)")), from Proto-Indo-European *gugā ("hump, ball") (compare Lithuanian gugà ("pommel, hump, hill")), from *gēw-. See etymology 1 above.
• Uncertain origin. Both verb and noun appear first in 1532.