Other forms: cogs
A cog was a broad medieval trading vessel. A Hanseatic cog, load the cog, a cog under sail.
It was the workhorse of northern European trade for three centuries: flat-bottomed so it could sit upright on a tidal beach and be unloaded without a quay, with a single square sail. The other cog, a tooth on a wheel, is a different word.
1nounshipA broad medieval trading vessel.
“Medieval merchants carried wool and wine across the North Sea in a sturdy wooden cog.”
cog is a ship.
Middle English cogge, from Old Norse koggr, from a Germanic root meaning a lump or swelling.
Proto-Indo-European
*gugā
Proto-Germanic
*kuggō
Old Norse
*koggr
Middle English
cogge
English, today
cog
Built from
From Middle English cogge, from Old Norse koggr, from Proto-Germanic kuggō, from Proto-Indo-European gugā, from gēw-. Middle English cogge, from Old Norse koggr (see gmq-osw kogger), from Proto-Germanic kuggō (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European gugā (“hump, ball”), from gēw- (“to bend, arch”). Compare Lithuanian gugà (“pommel, hump, hill”). Cognates includes: Swedish kugg (“cog tooth”), Norwegian kugg (“cog”). The meaning of “cog” in carpentry derives from association with a tooth on a cogwheel. Compare gmq-osw koggavidher* (“cog wood”), “wood reserved for a millwheel”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA