Meaning & use

cog

noun·Academic

A tooth on the rim of a wheel or gear that meshes with another to transmit motion.

See it in a sentence

One of the cogs on the old clock had worn down and stopped turning smoothly.

He felt like just a small cog in the enormous machinery of the corporation.

A note on using this word

Cog is often used figuratively, as in cog in the machine, to describe a small but replaceable part of a system.

Words with a similar meaning

geartooth

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Make it your own

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