[see COG sb.2] A wheel with cogs, used to transmit motion; more generally, a toothed wheel which engages with another similar wheel, or with a toothed bar or rack; a gear-wheel.
1416–39. in Rogers, Agric. & Prices, III. 547; ibid., 551.
1450. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 610/27. Scoriaballum, a cogwhele.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., xl. The cogge whele in a corne mylne is a great helper.
1660. R. D’Acres, Elem. Water-drawing, 38. Moved with Cogg wheels and trundles.
1846. Joyce, Sci. Dial., II. 197. These racks are moved up and down by means of a little cog-wheel.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 20/2. A cog-wheel, a name generally understood to mean a wheel in which the teeth are made of wood and mortised separately into an iron rim.
fig. 1837. Marryat, Dog-fiend, ix. The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling.
Hence Cog-wheelery, cog-wheel gearing.
1884. A. A. Putnam, Ten Yrs. Police Judge, xxiii. 202. Society runs itself without the machinery and cog-wheelery of codes and constables.
