Cogs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mechanical part designed to engage with other gears to transfer motion and force within machinery, crucial to the functionality of mechanical systems, and representing the smaller elements of a larger operational setup
2. A gear component that connects with others to help move different parts of a machine, serving as essential pieces in mechanical workings and indicating the individual units that contribute to an overall process
3. A toothed wheel that meshes with others to transmit rotary motion in machines ; an individual element within a larger system that plays a key operational role

Etymology: The word "cogs" is simply the plural of "cog", and the surprise lies in the ship before the gear. A cog was a broad, round-bellied sailing vessel of the medieval North Sea and Baltic trade, and its name is probably tied to that swollen, rounded shape. The same root gave Dutch "kogge" and Swedish "kogg", which likely appear in the Old Swedish word for timber set aside for a millwheel. The mechanical sense came later and by a different route. In carpentry, a cog is a projecting piece of wood, a tooth, and it was that tooth on a cogwheel that gave the word its gear meaning. Its ancestry lies in a family of words for knobs, stumps and bushes: Old Norse "kaggi" meant "keg", and English "cudgel" (a knotty club) belongs to the same cluster. So the gear's little teeth share their ancestry with a lumpy stick, not with the ship.

Synonyms: gears, wheels, teeth