engine

Less common meanings

6. 6
   war machinenouncountable

   Any of various large machines used in war, such as catapults and battering rams.

   Under cover of night, the besiegers wheeled a massive engine up to the gates.

   Medieval armies dismantled their engines and carted the timbers between sieges.

   Note

   The siege meaning is older than the English word. Late Latin ingenium could already mean a battering ram, and Old French engin a war machine, though both words began with skill and inborn nature. Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great sets 'warlike Engins and munition' against the strength of soldiers. In that line the engine is what cleverness builds when muscle is not enough.

7. 7
   fit a motorverbdatedtransitive

   To fit something, especially a steamship, with an engine or engines.

   Note

   Shipbuilding gave this verb its home in the age of steam, and it now sounds dated. It sits most naturally in the passive: a vessel is 'built by one firm and engined by another', so the hull and the machinery can have separate makers. The past form is the regular engined. That participle is where the verb is most often found. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • A vessel's hull and engines can be supplied by different firms, as the illustrative wording indicates. en.wiktionary.org
   • The regular past tense and past participle are engined. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   toolnounarchaic

   A tool, utensil, or implement of any kind.

   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.

   Similartool

   Note

   As well as naming machinery, the word could once name any tool at all. Pope uses it for the body itself, asking what would happen if the head, eye or ear refused 'to serve mere Engines to the ruling Mind'. Mandeville calls flattery a 'bewitching Engine'. The sense is archaic, so in modern prose it reads as a deliberate period touch. It suits historical fiction better than a hardware catalog. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The word also named medieval siege machinery; its historical meanings cannot be divided into a tool period followed by a machinery period. en.wikipedia.org
   • Engine could historically mean a tool, utensil or implement. en.wiktionary.org
   • Alexander Pope uses engines for bodily organs serving the mind, with the quoted wording. gutenberg.org
   • Bernard Mandeville calls flattery a bewitching engine. gutenberg.org
9. 9
   nounobsolete

   A product of cunning; an ingenious contrivance, or, in a negative sense, a plot or scheme.

   Note

   Here cunning has become a thing someone can build. Spenser writes in The Faerie Queene (1590) 'this craftie engine he did frame, / Against his praise to stirre vp enmitye'. Frame is the telling verb, because such engines are shaped and set up against someone. The adjective crafty does the moral work in that line. On its own, the noun could name a contrivance to admire as easily as one to fear. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene; the relevant book was first published in 1590. en.wikipedia.org
   • The quoted words occur in The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto I. en.wiktionary.org
   • The historical noun could denote an ingenious contrivance, with a negative sense of plot or scheme. en.wiktionary.org
10. 10
    nounobsolete

    Ingenuity or cunning; craft, trickery, or guile.

    Note

    Here the word names a quality of mind, not an object. Old French engin meant 'skill, cleverness' as well as the war machine. Used this way it is a mass noun: one wins by engine, as one wins by craft or wit. That separates it from the countable plot or contrivance, where cunning has produced something you can point to. In modern writing it reads as a conscious archaism. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • Engine historically denoted ingenuity or cunning as a mental quality. en.wiktionary.org
    • Old French engin meant skill or cleverness and also war machine. en.wiktionary.org
    • The abstract sense permits mass-noun use with by. hcmc.uvic.ca
    • A separate historical sense denotes a countable plot or contrivance produced by cunning. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    nounobsolete

    The natural talent or intellectual power a person is born with; genius.

    Note

    Of all the meanings, this one stays closest to Latin ingenium, 'innate or natural quality, nature, genius'. That word is related to ingignō, 'to instil by birth'. An engine in this meaning was something a person was born with, the mind's native power rather than its training. The sense is obsolete, so a reader meeting it in older prose should hear 'genius' or 'wit', never a machine. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • Engine ultimately derives from Latin ingenium. en.wikipedia.org
    • Ingenium denotes innate qualities and natural intellectual capacity or talent, supporting the comparison with this sense of engine. en.wiktionary.org
    • Ingenium is related to ingignō, glossed as 'to instil by birth'. en.wiktionary.org
    • The obsolete sense denotes natural talent or genius; within this sense, the reference is to innate mental ability. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To contrive or devise something; to put a plan or device into action.

    Note

    Plotting gets its own verb here. To engine something was to devise it or put it into action, linking this verb to a contrivance or scheme. The verb is obsolete and transitive. Its forms are the regular engining and engined, which a modern reader could easily mistake for the shipbuilding verb.

13. 13
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To attack or assault with a military engine such as a battering ram or catapult.

    to engine and batter our walls

    1629, Thomas Adams, Plain-Dealing

    Note

    The verb grew straight out of the siege-machine noun: to engine a wall was to bring rams or catapults against it. A sermon by the preacher Thomas Adams pairs it with its natural partner, 'to engine and batter our walls'. The sense is obsolete, so in modern prose it works only as a period word. Today 'batter' or 'bombard' carries the meaning. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • To engine a wall meant to attack it with military engines, including rams or catapults. en.wiktionary.org
    • Thomas Adams was a preacher. en.wikipedia.org
    • An Adams sermon contains the exact words 'to engine and batter our walls'. archive.org