cog
- noun
- /kɔg/
- As the machine gets bigger, we little cogs all get smaller and less significant.
- cog in the wheel
- an important cog
You're going to become someone's cog in a wheel.
- You're going to become someone's cog in a wheel.
- They're just one, one more cog in the intelligence collection machine, right?
- She knew how the whole how all the cogs at j.crew worked.
- She has been, I'm there trying to make me believe she was the smallest cog in the machine.
- Because in our world, the the flat out truth is our world needs cogs.
- I don't know, you know, maybe by then we'll all be, you know, cogs in that machine too.
- So you remember communism, which oftentimes figured kind of citizens as cogs in a machine.
- They look at people as just cogs in the machine, like it's just cutting off some fat, right?
- She's a real cog in the wheel of his attempt to climb to fascism and goes on from there.
- You're just a cog in the in the machine of nature that doesn't really care about you totally.
- But you know, there's this opposition to being reduced to cogs in the machine is kind of an interesting philosophical point, I think.
- The system is there to make you fit as a cog in a massive machine and just be someone that fits into the system as a factory worker.
- And then with you decrease the amount of people in the cog, you preempt.
Examples
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A person is more a cog in the State's machine than a free individual.
Academic text (2017) -
I'm not supposed to be some cog in a corporate strategy.
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You are the cog in the technology wheel without which it will not turn.
Academic text (2009) -
I'm just a cog in the wheel of the machine here.
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They're just one, one more cog in the intelligence collection machine, right?
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And it had been a vital cog in their defenses.
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You are a very small cog in a very large system and you will do as your commanding officer instructs.
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Harvin has been one of the key cogs in the Minnesota machine.
Blog text (27) -
Freeman has been one of the main cogs of the Harvard offense this season.
Blog text (23) -
In a large corporation, many employees feel like just a cog in the machine, doing their jobs without much say.
Antonyms
Compounds
- Specialized
A railway for steep hills where a gear on the train fits into a toothed rail to prevent slipping
How Important
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word cog for a small person in a big organization comes from that 'tooth' idea: like one small tooth in a machine, a cog does a routine but important job that keeps the whole system moving.