The Collaborative International Dictionary
Engine \En"gine\ ([e^]n"j[i^]n), n. [F. engin skill, machine, engine, L. ingenium natural capacity, invention; in in + the root of gignere to produce. See Genius, and cf. Ingenious, Gin a snare.]
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Note: (Pronounced, in this sense, [e^]n*j[=e]n".) Natural capacity; ability; skill. [Obs.]
A man hath sapiences three, Memory, engine, and intellect also.
--Chaucer. -
Anything used to effect a purpose; any device or contrivance; a machine; an agent.
--Shak.You see the ways the fisherman doth take To catch the fish; what engines doth he make?
--Bunyan.Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust.
--Shak. Any instrument by which any effect is produced; especially, an instrument or machine of war or torture. ``Terrible engines of death.''
--Sir W. Raleigh.-
(Mach.) A compound machine by which any physical power is applied to produce a given physical effect.
Engine driver, one who manages an engine; specifically, the engineer of a locomotive.
Engine lathe. (Mach.) See under Lathe.
Engine tool, a machine tool.
--J. Whitworth.Engine turning (Fine Arts), a method of ornamentation by means of a rose engine.
Note: The term engine is more commonly applied to massive machines, or to those giving power, or which produce some difficult result. Engines, as motors, are distinguished according to the source of power, as steam engine, air engine, electro-magnetic engine; or the purpose on account of which the power is applied, as fire engine, pumping engine, locomotive engine; or some peculiarity of construction or operation, as single-acting or double-acting engine, high-pressure or low-pressure engine, condensing engine, etc.
Wiktionary
n. (context British dated English) The person who drives the engine of a train.
WordNet
n. the operator of a railway locomotive [syn: engineer, locomotive engineer, railroad engineer]
Usage examples of "engine driver".
When the engine driver hit the brake, the brakes in all the cars were applied at the same time, to the same degree.
We should be crossing the Orange river in the next ten minutes, if the engine driver has kept us on schedule.
I wanted to be an engine driver when I was six, but my father said there were enough railway people in the family.
Reynolds, lurching and staggering down the wildly swaying length of a coach corridor, shared none of the engine driver's obvious confidence, not in the safety of the train, which was the least of Reynolds' worries, but in his own capacity to carry out the task that lay ahead of him.