engine

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman engine, Old French engin (“skill, cleverness, war machine”), from Latin ingenium (“innate or natural quality, nature, genius, a genius, an invention, (in Late Latin) a war-engine, battering-ram”), from ingenitum, past participle of ingignō (“to instil by birth, implant, produce in”). Compare gin, ingenious.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛnd͡ʒɪn/

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engine (plural engines)

1. A large construction used in warfare, such as a battering ram, catapult etc. [from 14th c.]
2. (now archaic) A tool; a utensil or implement. [from 14th c.]
   • 1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees:

     Flattery must be the most powerful Argument that cou'd be used to Human Creatures. Making use of this bewitching Engine, they extoll'd the Excellency of our Nature above other Animals [...].

   • 1733, [Alexander Pope], “Epistle I”, in An Essay on Man. Address’d to a Friend, new edition, London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, at the Three Flower-de-luces, behind the Chapter-house, S. Paul's, OCLC 228762650; republished as An Essay on Man. By Alexander Pope, Esq. A New Edition. To which is Prefixed a Critical Essay, by J[ohn] Aikin, M.D., London: Printed for T[homas] Cadell, Jun., and W. Davies, (successors to Mr. [Thomas] Cadell), Strand, 1796, OCLC 1008157997, stanza IX, lines 259–262, page 55:

     What if the foot, ordain'd the duſt to tread, / Or hand, to toil, aſpir'd to be the head? / What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd / To ſerve mere engines to the ruling mind; […]

3. A complex mechanical device which converts energy into useful motion or physical effects. [from 16th c.]
4. A person or group of people which influence a larger group; a driving force. [from 16th c.]
5. The part of a car or other vehicle which provides the force for motion, now especially one powered by internal combustion. [from 19th c.]
6. A self-powered vehicle, especially a locomotive, used for pulling cars along a track. [from 19th c.]
7. (computing) A software or hardware system responsible for a specific technical task (usually with qualifying word). [from 20th c.]

   a graphics engine; a physics engine

8. (obsolete) Ingenuity; cunning, trickery, guile. [13th-17th c.]
9. (obsolete) The result of cunning; something ingenious, a contrivance; (in negative senses) a plot, a scheme. [13th-18th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:

     Therefore this craftie engine he did frame, / Against his praise to stirre vp enmitye [...].

10. (obsolete) Natural talent; genius. [14th-17th c.]
11. Anything used to effect a purpose; any device or contrivance; an agent.
    • Bunyan

      You see the ways the fisherman doth take / To catch the fish; what engines doth he make?

    • Shakespeare

      Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust.

• motor
• locomotive

engine (third-person singular simple present engines, present participle engining, simple past and past participle engined)

1. (transitive, dated) To equip with an engine; said especially of steam vessels.

   Vessels are often built by one firm and engined by another.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To assault with an engine.
   • (Can we date this quote?) T. Adams.

     to engine and batter our walls

3. (transitive, obsolete) To contrive; to put into action.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To rack; to torture.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)

• engine in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• engine in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• ginnee