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cog

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Etymology and origin of the English word cog

Pronunciation

  • /kɒɡ/, /kɔɡ/[1]

cog1 gear tooth

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1250 before 1250, The Owl and the Nightingale
Borrowed from
Old Norse via Middle English

Etymology

The word for a tooth on a wheel is inherited from Middle English cogge,[2][3][4] probably of Scandinavian origin.[5][6][3][7][8][9] It is compared with Swedish kugge and Norwegian kug, meaning the same,[3][8][2][10] and Barnhart and Etymonline consider it cognate with Middle High German kugel (“ball”).[5][6] The OED, in an entry not revised since 1891, calls the Swedish and Norwegian words evidently cognate but leaves the relation between them undetermined; it dismisses an Irish and Welsh source, since those words come from English, and a derivation from the Romance words for a notch, such as Italian cocca.[2] The Middle English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged relate it to Old English cycgel, the source of cudgel.[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tooth on the rim of a wheel: before 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale, where a frog sits under the cog of a mill wheel.[2][11] Barnhart dates this to before 1300, in a version of the poem;[5] Etymonline gives "a toothed wheel" from about 1300 and "a tooth on a wheel" from the late 14th century.[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used of the teeth and toothed wheel of mills.[4] The verb, to fit a wheel with cogs, is recorded from 1499,[2][8] and the noun later also meant the whole set of teeth round a wheel (1712) and a cogwheel (1883).[2] In Scotland and the north the verb and the noun were used of a wedge to steady or stop a wheel.[2][12] The figurative sense, a person with a necessary but minor place in a large organization, often a cog in the machine, is first recorded in 1934.[2][8] Mining and metal-working added a block supporting a mine roof (1881) and the verb "to roll ingots" (1881).[2]

Timeline

  • before 1250 – a tooth on the rim of a wheel.[2]
  • 1499 – verb, to fit a wheel with cogs.[2]
  • 1635 – verb, to stop or steady a wheel with a wedge.[2]
  • 1883 – a cogwheel.[2]
  • 1909 – to slip a cog, to make a mistake.[2]
  • 1934 – a person with a necessary but minor role in a large organization.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. One of the teeth on the rim of a wheel or gear, which engage with those of another wheel to pass on motion.[9][7][8]
  2. A cogwheel, especially a small one.[9][2]
  3. A person who has a necessary but minor part in a large organization or process: just a cog in the machine.[9][7][2]

Verb

  1. To fit a wheel with cogs.[7][2]
  2. (metallurgy) To roll steel ingots into blooms.[9][8]

Word family

  • cogged
  • cogwheel
  • cog railway

cog2 medieval ship

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1373 Calendar of Letter-books of London
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman cogge via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Middle Dutch cogge

Etymology

The word for the ship is inherited from Middle English cogge,[2][4][7] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman cogge and partly borrowed from Middle Dutch cogge,[2] the Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the 13th century, apparently coming from the Middle Dutch one.[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives the Middle Dutch word from Middle French coque,[7] while the Shorter Oxford takes Old French cogue from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch.[8] The OED compares Middle Low German kogge and Old High German kockō, and traces them probably to a variant of the Germanic base of Middle High German kugel (“sphere, ball”).[2] The ship is named in Medieval Latin as coga and cogga from the 12th century, and English ship names such as “Le Cogg Seint Johan” (1315) may imply earlier use.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A broad, flat-bottomed ship with high sides and a rounded prow and stern, used in northern Europe from the 11th to the late 15th centuries: 1373, in a London letter-book.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

As the large ship fell out of use, the word came to mean a small boat carried on or towed by a larger vessel, a cockboat (c. 1430–1600); the OED takes this as probably an alteration of cock, a small boat, and in this sense the two words were used interchangeably.[2] Chaucer's Legend of Good Women has it for a skiff.[2][10] In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire a cog was a kind of craft that carried goods on the Humber and the Ouse between Hull and York.[12][8]

Timeline

  • 1373 – a broad medieval merchant or transport ship.[2]
  • c. 1430 – a small boat carried by a larger vessel (until 1600).[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (historical) A broadly built merchant and transport ship with a rounded prow and stern, used in northern Europe until the 16th century.[7][8][2]
  2. (obsolete) A small boat; a cockboat.[7][2]

Word family

  • cogboat

cog3 to cheat at dice

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1532

Etymology

The verb meaning to cheat at dice is of unknown origin.[2][7][8][13][14] The OED notes that the verb and the matching noun first appear together in 1532 as ruffians' terms of dice-play, and that, as with other cant words, their origin has not been preserved.[2] Chambers calls it thieves' slang.[15] Weekley suggested it might be the word for a tooth on a wheel, with the idea of a mechanical device,[10] and Johnson reported Skinner's derivation from French coqueliner.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

To practise tricks in throwing dice: the verb and the noun appear in 1532 as dicers' cant;[2] the OED's first quotation for the verb is from Ascham's Toxophilus (1545).[2]

Semantic evolution

From the dicing table the verb passed into general use in senses that keep the idea of dishonest play.[2] To cog a die was to control its fall fraudulently (1564);[2] the phrase cogged dice later came to be misunderstood as loaded dice.[10][8] The verb was used of cheating at cards (1592), of cheating in general (c. 1577), of flattering or wheedling (1583), as in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, and of foisting something on someone by fraud (1570).[2][16] The noun meant an act of cheating at dice (c. 1555), a trick or fraud (1602), and in cant the money a trickster dropped to lure a victim (c. 1555).[2][8] In the 19th century dialects of Cheshire and Scotland still used the verb for "to cheat", and Sussex for "to entice, flatter".[12]

Timeline

  • 1532 – verb and noun, in the cant of dice-play.[2]
  • 1545 – to cheat in throwing dice.[2]
  • c. 1555 – noun, an act or method of cheating at dice; also money used to lure a victim.[2]
  • 1564 – to cog a die, to control its fall fraudulently.[2]
  • 1583 – to flatter, wheedle (obsolete by 1728).[2]
  • 1592 – to cheat at cards.[2]
  • 1602 – noun, a deception, trick (until 1619).[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (archaic) To cheat in throwing dice; to control the fall of dice fraudulently.[7][8][2]
  2. (obsolete) To cheat or deceive.[7][2]
  3. (obsolete) To flatter or wheedle; to get something by flattery.[7][2][16]

Noun

  1. (obsolete) A trick or deception, especially at dice.[7][8][2]

Usage notes

A separate cog in carpentry, a tenon on the end of a beam fitted into a notch in another, with the verb "to join timbers by such tenons", is apparently an alteration of cock under the influence of the cogs of a wheel;[2][7][8] the OED dates both to 1858, while Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the verb to 1823.[2][7] In Scotland a cog is also a wooden vessel made with staves, used for milking, recorded from before 1568 and of uncertain origin.[2][12][7]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  15. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2008), 11th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap
  16. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.

Related etymologies

  • scoop · also from Middle Dutch
  • mart · also from Middle Dutch
  • poke · also from Middle Dutch
  • smack · also from Middle Dutch
  • curl · also from Middle Dutch
  • stripe · also from Middle Dutch
  • peg · also from Middle Dutch
  • rumble · also from Middle Dutch
Cite this entry

“Cog.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/cog. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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