What is "man engine"

Man \Man\ (m[a^]n), n.; pl. Men (m[e^]n). [AS. mann, man, monn, mon; akin to OS., D., & OHG. man, G. mann, Icel. ma[eth]r, for mannr, Dan. Mand, Sw. man, Goth. manna, Skr. manu, manus, and perh. to Skr. man to think, and E. mind.

1. A human being; -- opposed to beast.

   These men went about wide, and man found they none, But fair country, and wild beast many [a] one.
   --R. of Glouc.

   The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me.
   --Shak.

   'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast!
   --W. C. Fields

2. Especially: An adult male person; a grown-up male person, as distinguished from a woman or a child.

   When I became a man, I put away childish things.
   --I Cor. xiii. 11.

   Ceneus, a woman once, and once a man.
   --Dryden.

3. The human race; mankind.

   And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion.
   --Gen. i. 26.

   The proper study of mankind is man.
   --Pope.

4. The male portion of the human race.

   Woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than man to the discharge of parental duties.
   --Cowper.

5. One possessing in a high degree the distinctive qualities of manhood; one having manly excellence of any kind.
   --Shak.

   This was the noblest Roman of them all . . . the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world ``This was a man!''
   --Shak.

6. An adult male servant; also, a vassal; a subject.

   Like master, like man.
   --Old Proverb.

   The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor.
   --Blackstone.

7. A term of familiar address at one time implying on the part of the speaker some degree of authority, impatience, or haste; as, Come, man, we 've no time to lose! In the latter half of the 20th century it became used in a broader sense as simply a familiar and informal form of address, but is not used in business or formal situations; as, hey, man! You want to go to a movie tonight?.

8. A married man; a husband; -- correlative to wife.

   I pronounce that they are man and wife.
   --Book of Com. Prayer.

   every wife ought to answer for her man.
   --Addison.

9. One, or any one, indefinitely; -- a modified survival of the Saxon use of man, or mon, as an indefinite pronoun.

   A man can not make him laugh.
   --Shak.

   A man would expect to find some antiquities; but all they have to show of this nature is an old rostrum of a Roman ship.
   --Addison.

10. One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played. Note: Man is often used as a prefix in composition, or as a separate adjective, its sense being usually self-explaining; as, man child, man eater or maneater, man-eating, man hater or manhater, man-hating, manhunter, man-hunting, mankiller, man-killing, man midwife, man pleaser, man servant, man-shaped, manslayer, manstealer, man-stealing, manthief, man worship, etc. Man is also used as a suffix to denote a person of the male sex having a business which pertains to the thing spoken of in the qualifying part of the compound; ashman, butterman, laundryman, lumberman, milkman, fireman, repairman, showman, waterman, woodman. Where the combination is not familiar, or where some specific meaning of the compound is to be avoided, man is used as a separate substantive in the foregoing sense; as, apple man, cloth man, coal man, hardware man, wood man (as distinguished from woodman). Man ape (Zo["o]l.), a anthropoid ape, as the gorilla. Man at arms, a designation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for a soldier fully armed. Man engine, a mechanical lift for raising or lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (Mining), a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A man steps from a landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next landing, upon which he them steps, and so on, traveling by successive stages. Man Friday, a person wholly subservient to the will of another, like Robinson Crusoe's servant Friday. Man of straw, a puppet; one who is controlled by others; also, one who is not responsible pecuniarily. Man-of-the earth (Bot.), a twining plant ( Ipom[oe]a pandurata) with leaves and flowers much like those of the morning-glory, but having an immense tuberous farinaceous root. Man of sin (Script.), one who is the embodiment of evil, whose coming is represented (--2 Thess. ii. 3) as preceding the second coming of Christ. [A Hebraistic expression] Man of war.

    1. A warrior; a soldier.
       --Shak.

    2. (Naut.) See in the Vocabulary.

    3. See Portuguese man-of-war under man-of-war and also see Physalia.

       Man-stopping bullet (Mil.), a bullet which will produce a sufficient shock to stop a soldier advancing in a charge; specif., a small-caliber bullet so modified as to expand when striking the human body, producing a severe wound which is also difficult to treat medically. Types of bullets called hollow-nosed bullets, soft-nosed bullets and hollow-point bullets are classed as man-stopping. The dumdum bullet or dumdum is another well-known variety. Such bullets were originally designed for wars with savage tribes.

       To be one's own man, to have command of one's self; not to be subject to another.

n. A mechanical lift for raising or lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (context mining English) a contrivance by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft. It consists of a series of landings in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A man steps from a landing to a shelf and is lifted or lowered to the next landing, upon which he then steps, and so on, travelling by successive stages.

A man engine is a mechanism of reciprocating ladders and stationary platforms installed in mines to assist the miners' journeys to and from the working levels. It was invented in Germany in the 19th century and was a prominent feature of tin and copper mines in Cornwall until the beginning of the twentieth century.