COGS Synonyms: 40 Similar and Opposite Words

cogs

noun

plural of cog

as in underlings

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Recent Examples of Synonyms for cogs

Noun

His underlings kidnapped and tortured a dealer who refused to pay, the indictment said.

— Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 2026
Lamb, who was once floated for the service’s top job, treats his current position as a kind of penance for past sins, both for himself and for his underlings.

— Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2026

Definition of underlings

Noun

Buying Riley out of his deal would mean forking over upwards of $70 million, plus more for his assistants.

— Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 28 Oct. 2026
Office assistants and teachers were dealing with angry parents, while the volleyball coaching staff tried to prepare for league playoffs while fielding complex questions about federal equality laws from teenagers.

— Alejandro Avila OutKick, FOXNews.com, 27 Oct. 2026

Definition of assistants

Noun

No matter how powerful, dictators have always needed subordinates—censors, propagandists, security guards, police officers, intelligence analysts, and local bureaucrats—to carry out their orders.

— Seva Gunitsky, Foreign Affairs, 1 Oct. 2026
Investigators have accused one of his subordinates of running a fraud scheme, though Kravchenko himself has not been charged or named a suspect.

— ABC News, ABC News, 14 Sep. 2026

Definition of subordinates

Noun

According to local media reports, employees in Area A, where the laboratory is located, were instructed to shelter in place for approximately 30 minutes.

— Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 29 Oct. 2026
For perspective, 41% goes to coverage of other brand-name specialty drugs taken by 6,500 employees.

— Ben Smith, semafor.com, 29 Oct. 2026

Definition of employees

Noun

Surrounding yourself with a bunch of yes-men is not a recipe for success—at least according to AT&T CEO John Stankey.

— Preston Fore, Fortune, 6 Sep. 2026
High-profile right-wing accounts that previously served as yes-men for Musk—such as Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysian who purportedly lives in the United Arab Emirates and posts incessant, racist drivel about American politics—have melted down over the platform’s decision to dox users.

— Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 24 Nov. 2025

Definition of yes-men

Noun

Batman’s nemesis is a billionaire with his own personal island for committing atrocities; Superman is traveling the world combating corporate abuse of laborers; this year’s new addition, Green Arrow, flat-out hunts CEOs.

— Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 28 Oct. 2026
The organization later became the United Farm Workers, a union that fought to improve wages, working conditions and protections for agricultural laborers.

— Sacbee.com, Sacbee.com, 28 Oct. 2026

Definition of laborers

Noun

But the movement has widened to include workers demanding relief from rising living costs, making the government’s task broader than resolving a dispute over university admissions.

— Thomas Adamson, Los Angeles Times, 27 Oct. 2026
Also according to the emergency service, consecutive Russian strikes on a shopping center in Kharkiv injured four people late on Saturday, including three rescue workers.

— Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 26 Oct. 2026

Definition of workers

Noun

The video shows four deputies running after Garza along Interstate 10 in Palm Springs, with Garza facing the deputies several times while holding an object in his hands.

— Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, 24 Oct. 2026
Alaska’s bid for statehood, in the late nineteen-fifties, was in part a matter of keeping the hands of Seattle businessmen off local salmon stocks.

— Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2026

Definition of hands

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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“Cogs.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cogs. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of cogs

noun

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