Noun: engine
| Singular | engine |
| Plural | engines |
Sample Sentences
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Their warlike Engins and munition
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Exceed the forces of their martial men. [c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IIII, scene i:]
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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 [...]. [1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees:]
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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? [1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle I, London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC, page 15, lines 248–251:]
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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. [1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 75:]
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a graphics engine
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a physics engine
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Therefore this craftie engine he did frame, / Againſt his praiſe to ſtirre vp enmitye [...]. [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 193:]
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[...] their promiſes, entiſements, oathes, tokens, and all theſe engines of luſt [...]. [c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v], page 243, column 1:]
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You ſee the ways the Fiſher-man doth take / To catch the Fiſh; what Engins doth he make? [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:]
Nouns inflected like engine
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
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”), related to ingignō (“to instil by birth, implant, produce in”). Compare gin, ingenious, engineer. See: Latin Nouns '
ingenium'.