engine

From Middle English engyn, 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, engineer.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈɛnd͡ʒɪn/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈend͡ʒɪn/, /ˈend͡ʒən/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈend͡ʒɘn/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛndʒɪn, -endʒɪn, -endʒən
• Hyphenation: en‧gine

engine (plural engines)

1. A large construction used in warfare, such as a battering ram, catapult etc. [from 14th c.]
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], part 1, 2nd edition, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, OCLC 932920499; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IV, scene i:

     Their warlike Engins and munition
     Exceed the forces of their martial men.

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], An Essay on Man. […], epistle I, London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], OCLC 960856019, lines 248–251, page 15:

     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.]
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, page 75:

     In France, the parliament soon became a mere engine in the hands of a few high-born and ambitious men, who had nothing in common with its interests, which were those of the people.

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, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, page 193:

     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.
    • c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s VVell, that Ends VVell”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene v], page 243, column 1:

      [...] their promiſes, entiſements, oathes, tokens, and all theſe engines of luſt [...].

    • 1678, John Bunyan, “The Author’s Apology for His Book”, in The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], OCLC 228725984; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, OCLC 5190338:

      You ſee the ways the Fiſher-man doth take / To catch the Fiſh; what Engins doth he make?

• motor
• locomotive

• → Afrikaans: enjin
• → Bashkir: ইঞ্জিন (ইঞ্জিন)
• → Hindi: इंजन (iñjan)
• → Japanese: エンジン
  • → Hakka: 引擎 (ên-chín)
  • → Min Nan: 引擎 (ia̋n-jín)
• → Malay: enjin
  • Indonesian: enjin
• → Scottish Gaelic: einnsean
• → Swedish: injini
• → Shanghainese: 引擎 (in¹-jin⁶)
  • → Chinese: 引擎 (yǐnqíng)

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.
   • 1629, Thomas Adams, Plain-Dealing

     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?)

   • Quoted in 1977, Virginia Brown (ed.), Mediaeval Studies (volume XXXIX), Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada

     In the year 1433 a merchant complained to Commons that the lord of the port city of Gildo in Brittany had imprisoned a servant of his ‘and engined him so that he was in point of death’ (Rot. pari. 4.475).

• 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

• (Hong Kong Cantonese) N展 (en1 zin2)
• (Hong Kong Cantonese) engin (en1 zin2)

From clipping of English engineering.

engine

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) engineering industry; engineer
2. (Hong Kong Cantonese, university slang) engineering

From English engine.

engine

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) engine (mechanical device; part of a vehicle; computing)

• (engine):