释义 |
cog-wheel [see cog n.2] a. 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.
1416–39in Rogers Agric. & Prices III. 547; ibid. 551. 1450 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 610/27 Scoriaballum, a cogwhele. 1523Fitzherb. Surv. xl, The cogge whele in a corne mylne is a great helper. 1660W. D'Acres Water Drawing 38 Moved with cogg wheels and trundles. 1846Joyce Sci. Dial. ii. 197 These racks are moved up and down by means of a little cog-wheel. 1879Cassell'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.1837Marryat Dog-fiend ix, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling. b. cog-wheel railway, system, a mountain-railway system using a cog-rail (see cog n.2 6); a rack railway.
1904Westm. Gaz. 4 May 10/1 Lines up the mountains and over the passes worked on the cog-wheel system. 1907Ibid. 24 July 1/3 The circuitous cog-wheel railway connecting Csorba with Csorba-tó. 1963Economist 30 Nov. 911/3 Cogwheel railways, an earlier method of getting up steep mountain sides. Hence cog-wheelery, cog-wheel gearing.
1884A. A. Putnam 10 Years Police Judge xxiii. 202 Society runs itself without the machinery and cog-wheelery of codes and constables. |