cog

«cog» in Mova's school dictionary: one of the teeth around the edge of a wheel in a machine… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a cog, cogs)

meaning for a pupil

1) A cog is one of the teeth around the edge of a wheel in a machine; a whole wheel with teeth is also called a cog or cogwheel (gear). tree →

2) (figurative) «A cog in the machine» is a person who has a small part in a big organisation and feels unimportant. tree →

3) (UK, slang) In some places, «to cog» means to copy someone's homework. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and DT lessons, cogs (gears) show how turning one wheel can turn another faster, slower or the other way; a small cog turning a big cog makes it turn more slowly but with more force. In stories, «the cogs were turning» means someone was thinking hard. Phrases: «a cog in the machine», «cogs turning», «cogwheel».

examples

• The clock's cogs turned slowly behind the glass. tree →
• When the big cog turns once, the small cog turns three times. tree →
• A missing tooth on the cog jammed the machine. tree →
• You could see the cogs turning in his head as he worked out the puzzle. tree →
• He felt like a tiny cog in a huge company. tree →
• We built a cog model from cardboard and pins. tree →
• The bike's chain runs over cogs at the back wheel. tree →

note

Countable noun: one cog, two cogs. In maths problems with gears, if a big cog has 30 teeth and a small one 10, the small cog turns 3 times for each turn of the big one (30 ÷ 10 = 3).

In the corpora

• Picture a puzzle card at a science club: «A chain wheel has 40 teeth and the back cog 20.
• A bigger back cog makes pedalling easier but slower, good for hills; a smaller back cog makes it harder but faster.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cog» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.