Engine (redirected from engined)

engine: see diesel engine; internal-combustion engine; steam engine; rotary engine; automobile.

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engine

Machine that can convert any of various forms of energy into mechanical power or motion. The steam engines developed during the Industrial Revolution to power stationary machinery were modified in the 19th century to propel locomotives and ships, and were joined later by steam turbines. Internal-combustion engines were developed by Nikolaus Otto and Rudolf Diesel in the late 19th century. Gas turbines and rocket engines came into use in the later 20th century. See also diesel engine, gasoline engine, jet engine, rocket, and rotary engine.

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(1) A specialized processor, such as a graphics processor. Like any engine, the faster it runs, the quicker the job gets done. See graphics engine and printer engine.

(2) Software that performs a very specific and repetitive function in contrast to an application that has many functions offered to the user. For example, a "search engine" or "database engine" responds to user queries over and over again. An "SMTP engine" just forwards mail when required. A "dictionary engine" looks up words. See search engine and database engine.

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Engine

A machine designed for the conversion of energy into useful mechanical motion. The principal characteristic of an engine is its capacity to deliver appreciable mechanical power, as contrasted to a mechanism such as a clock, whose significant output is motion. By usage an engine is usually a machine that burns or otherwise consumes a fuel, as differentiated from an electric machine that produces mechanical power without altering the composition of matter. Similarly, a spring-driven mechanism is said to be powered by a spring motor; a flywheel acts as an inertia motor. By definition a hydraulic turbine is not an engine, although it competes with the engine as a prime source of mechanical power. See Energy conversion, Hydraulic turbine, Motor, Prime mover

Traditionally, engines are classed as external or internal combustion. External combustion engines consume their fuel or other energy source in a separate furnace or reactor. A further basis of classification concerns the working fluid. If the working fluid is recirculated, the engine operates on a closed cycle. If the working fluid is discharged after one pass through boiler and engine, the engine operates on an open cycle. The commonest types of engine use atmospheric air in open cycles both as the principal constituent of their working fluids and as oxidizer for their fuels. See Diesel engine, Gas turbine, Internal combustion engine, Nuclear reactor, Rotary engine, Stirling engine, Turbine propulsion

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(jargon)

engine - 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be used without some kind of front end. Today we have, especially, "print engine": the guts of a laser printer. 2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a lot of noisy crunching, such as a "database engine", or "search engine". The hackish senses of "engine" are actually close to its original, pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or instrument (the word is cognate to "ingenuity"). This sense had not been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which explains why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the "Analytical Engine".