engranaje
nounCEFR B2
What does “engranaje” mean in English?
gear, mechanism
gear, mechanism (a toothed wheel in machinery; figuratively the workings of a system; engranajes del Estado)
Example sentences
El escándalo puso al descubierto los engranajes ocultos de un sistema de corrupción que operaba desde hacía décadas.
The scandal exposed the hidden workings of a corruption system that had been operating for decades.
La empresa funciona como un engranaje perfectamente sincronizado: cada departamento depende del rendimiento de los demás.
The company works like a perfectly synchronised set of cogs: each department depends on the performance of the others.
El robot industrial utiliza una serie de engranajes de precisión que deben lubricarse cada quinientas horas de funcionamiento.
The industrial robot uses a series of precision gears that must be lubricated every five hundred hours of operation.
How to use it
El engranaje (noun, masculine) means 'gear, cog, mechanism' — literally a toothed wheel in a machine; figuratively, the workings of a system. At B2, the figurative sense (the workings/machinery of bureaucracy, power, etc.) is as important as the literal one. Core collocations: los engranajes de la maquinaria burocrática/del Estado; un engranaje del sistema; engranar bien/mal; el engranaje político; pieza del engranaje. The verb is engranar (to mesh, to gear together). Distinguish from marcha (gear in a vehicle — la primera marcha) and mecanismo (mechanism — more general).
Common mistake
Don't use engranaje for 'gear' in the vehicle-transmission sense — that is la marcha (primera marcha = first gear, cambiar de marcha = to change gear). Engranaje refers to the cog/gear mechanism itself. The figurative plural los engranajes (the workings/machinations of something) is very common in journalism at B2.