Contents
English
Wikipedia has an article on: Engine Wikimedia Commons has more media related to: Engines An automobile engine A miniature train engineEtymology
From Middle English engin < Old French engin (“‘skill", "cleverness", "war machine’”) < Latin ingenium (“‘innate or natural quality, nature, genius, a genious, an invention, in Late Latin a war-engine, battering-ram’”) < ingenitum, past participle of ingignere (“‘to instil by birth, implant, produce in’”); see ingenious. Engine originally meant 'ingenuity, cunning' which eventually developed into meaning 'the product of ingenuity, a plot or snare' and 'tool, weapon'.
Pronunciation
Noun
engine (plural engines)
- (obsolete) Cunning, trickery.
- (obsolete) The result of cunning; a plot, a scheme.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:
- Therefore this craftie engine he did frame, / Against his praise to stirre vp enmitye [...].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:
- (engineering) A device to convert energy into useful mechanical motion.
- A powered locomotive used for pulling cars on railways.
- A person or group of people which influence a larger group.
- (informal) the brain or heart.
- (computing) A software system, not a complete program, responsible for a technical task (as in layout engine, physics engine).
Synonyms
Derived terms
term derived from engineRelated terms
terms related to engineExternal links
- engine in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- engine in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
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Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:16:37 GMT+00:00
MarketWatch (press release) Under a new, 13-year event cost plan (ECP) contract, P&WC CSE Europe will increase its engine maintenance coverage to 24 PT6C-67C engines from the current ...
