Meaning & use
cog in the machine
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Meaning
nounidiomdisapproving
A person who is only a small, replaceable part of a large organization or system and has little personal influence.
Grammar: Often written 'a cog in the machine' or 'a cog in a wheel': he felt like a cog in the machine.
Patterns
- be a cog in the machine
- feel like a cog in the machine
After years at the big company, she felt like just a cog in the machine.
He refused to be a cog in the machine and started his own business.
Factory workers sometimes describe themselves as cogs in the machine.
Common combinations
- feel like a cog in the machine
- Many new employees feel like a cog in the machine.
- just a cog in the machine
- I'm just a cog in the machine here.
- be a cog in the machine
- Nobody wants to be a cog in the machine forever.
- small cog in the machine
- As a small cog in the machine, he could not change policy.
- become a cog in the machine
- Don't let the job make you a cog in the machine.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pawn
- Suggests being moved around by others for their purposes, rather than being one small part.
- small fish
- Stresses low importance next to powerful people, with no sense of a system.
- faceless bureaucrat
- Describes an official in a large system and is more critical.
- cog in the wheel
- Is a variant meaning about the same, and equally common.
Opposites
Word family
- cog noun
- A toothed wheel part, or an unimportant person in a system.
Commonly confused: cog in the machine or clog?
cog in the machine vs clog
A type of shoe or a blockage; a cog is a toothed gear.
Practice
After the merger, Mina felt she was just a cog in the machine. What does this mean?
Choose one answer.
The idiom means being a small replaceable part of a big organization; the other options do not match that meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cog in the machine”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.