engine
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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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Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:18:41 GMT+00:00
fire at the apron The Aviation Herald ... several minutes after touch down when the left hand engine (CFM56) caught fire prompting the crew to initiate an evacuation via slides onto the apron. ...
