engine
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From Middle English engin, from Old French engin (“skill", "cleverness", "war machine”), from Latin ingenium (“innate or natural quality, nature, genius, a genious, an invention, in Late Latin a war-engine, battering-ram”), from 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'.
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] 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, especially heat energy
- 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).
[edit] Synonyms
[edit] Derived terms
term derived from engine
[edit] Related terms
terms related to engine
[edit] Translations
mechanical device
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locomotive
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influential group
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
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[edit] External links
- engine in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- engine in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
