engineer

To employ one's abilities and knowledge as an engineer to design, construct, and/or maintain (something, such as a machine or a structure), usually for industrial or public use.

Noun

  1. A soldier engaged in designing or constructing military works for attack or defence, or other engineering works.
    • For tis the ſport to haue the enginer / Hoiſt with his ovvne petar, an't ſhall goe hard / But I vvill delue one yard belovve their mines, / And blovve them at the Moone: […] - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William...
    • Novv he began another Trade, and became an Ingenor, hauing got eight Fire-brands of hell more to him, onely of purpoſe to ſet our houſe a fire. - 1625, Edmund Scot, “A Discourse of Iaua, and of the First English...
    • Cannons vpon their Carriage mounted are, / VVhole Battery Fraunce muſt feele vpon her VValls, / The Engineer prouiding the Petar, / To breake the ſtrong Percullice, and the Balls / Of VVild fire deuis'd to throvv from...
  2. A soldier in charge of operating a weapon; an artilleryman, a gunner.
    • This is hard welcome, but it was not you, / At whom the fatal enginer did ayme, / My breaſt the levell was, though you the marke, / In which conſpiracie anſwere me Duke, / Is not thy ſoule as guiltie as the Earles? -...
    • Wit's an unruly engine, wildly ſtriking / Sometimes a friend, ſometimes the engineer. - [1633], George Herbert, “The Church-porch”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations,...
    • An Author who points his ſatyr at a great man, is to be looked upon in the ſame view with the engineer who ſignalized himſelf by this ungenerous practice. - 1716 March 5 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The...
  3. A person professionally engaged in the technical design and construction of large-scale private and public works such as bridges, buildings, harbours, railways, roads, etc.; a civil engineer.
    • [T]o an Enginer alſo, vvho promiſed to bring into the Capitoll huge Columnes vvith ſmall charges, hee gave for his deviſe no meane revvard; and releaſed him his labour in performing that vvorke, ſaying vvithall by vvay...
  4. Originally, a person engaged in designing, constructing, or maintaining engines or machinery; now (more generally), a person qualified or professionally engaged in any branch of engineering, or studying to do so.
    • Macanopoietico, an inginer, an engine-maker. - 1598, John Florio, “Macanopoietico”, in A Worlde of Words, or Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English, […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield for Edw[ard]...
    • [N]ear St. Laurence-Lane his lordship receives an entertainment from an unparalleled masterpiece of art, called the Crystal Sanctuary, styled by the name of the Temple of Integrity, […] and more to express the invention...
    • Somehow, everybody who isn’t in sales, marketing, or design became an engineer. “We’re hiring engineers,” read startup websites, which could mean anything from Javascript^([sic]) programmers to roboticists. - 2015...
  5. A person trained to operate an engine.
    • The machinery [the steam engine] has proved, like the balloon, unmanageable, and flies away with the aeronaut. Steam, from the first, hissed and screamed to warn him; it was dreadful with its explosion, and crushed the...
    • The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him. - 1892, Walt Whitman, “Song of the Answerer”, in Leaves of Grass […],...
    • One of the stokers was disabled, the others had given in, the second engineer and the donkey-man were firing-up. The third engineer was standing by the steam-valve. The engines were being tended by hand. - 1902...

    Synonyms: engineman

    1. (chiefly historical) A person who operates a steam engine; specifically (nautical), a person employed to operate the steam engine in the engine room of a ship.

    2. (US, firefighting) A person who drives or operates a fire engine (firefighting apparatus).

    3. (chiefly US, rail transport) A person who drives or operates a locomotive; a train driver.

      Hypernyms: footplateman

      Coordinate Terms: fireman

  6. Preceded by a qualifying word: a person who uses abilities or knowledge to manipulate events or people.
    • a political engineer
    • Now that I may not ſeem to paſs my Cenſure raſhly, I deſire that my more intelligent Readers will pleaſe to reduce the following things into Meaning, if they can, and favour us with the Interpretation; being ſome...
  7. A person who formulates plots or schemes; a plotter, a schemer.
    • But the trimme ſilke-worme I looked for (as it were in a proper contempt of common fineneſſe) prooveth but a ſilly glow-woorme, and the dreadfull enginer of phraſes, in steede of thunderboltes, ſhooteth nothing but...
    • No Silius, vve are no good Inginers; / VVe vvant the fine Artes, & their thriuing vſe / Should make vs grac'd, or fauour'd of the Times: / […] / VVe burne vvith no black ſecrets, vvhich can make / Vs deare to the pale...
    • [T]he fighting men of England, masters of destruction, engineers of death! - 1903 October, Jack London, “Coronation Day”, in The People of the Abyss, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.,...
  8. An honorific title given to engineers before their name.

Origin

The noun is derived from: * Middle English enginour (“one who designs, constructs, or operates military works for attack or defence, etc.; machine designer”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman enginour, engigneour [and other forms], and Middle French and Old French engigneor, engigneour, engignier (“one who designs, constructs, or operates military works for attack or defence; architect; carpenter; craftsman; designer; planner; one who deceives or schemes”) (modern French ingénieur), from engin (“contraption, device; machine; invention; creativity, ingenuity; intelligence; deception, ruse, trickery”) + -eor, -or (suffix forming agent nouns); engin is derived from Latin ingenium (“innate or natural quality, nature; intelligence, natural capacity; ability, skill, talent; (Medieval Latin) engine; machine”), from in- (prefix meaning ‘in, inside, within’) + gignere (the present active...

Forms

engineers

Hyponyms

aeroengineer aeronautical engineer aerospace engineer astro-engineer audio engineer bioengineer certification engineer chemical engineer civil engineer combat engineer computer engineer data engineer design release engineer domestic engineer ecosystem engineer efficiency engineer electrical engineer electroengineer field applications engineer field engineer firmware engineer flight engineer genetic engineer gengineer

Related

genius ingeniosity ingenious ingeniously ingeniousness ingenuity

Derived

astroengineer bioneer engineer boot engineeress engineerish engineerization engineer's blue engineer's chain engineership engineer's scale enginerd engr. fungineer glycoengineer Imagineer microengineer misengineer motorneer nanoengineer neuroengineer nonengineer nonengineering socioengineer subengineer

Verb

  1. To employ one's abilities and knowledge as an engineer to design, construct, and/or maintain (something, such as a machine or a structure), usually for industrial or public use.
  2. To use genetic engineering to alter or construct (a DNA sequence), or to alter (an organism).
    • In an interesting animal study, scientists engineered mice with a specific gene defect that caused memory and learning problems. - 2018, Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain, →ISBN, page 41:
  3. To plan or achieve (a goal) by contrivance or guile; to finagle, to wangle.
  4. To formulate plots or schemes; to plot, to scheme.

    Synonyms: machinate

  5. To work as an engineer.
    • What of the grand tools with which we engineer, like kobolds and enchanters,—tunnelling Alps, canalling the American Isthmus, piercing the Arabian desert? - 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Works and Days”, in Society and...

Forms

engineers engineering engineered

Derived

back-engineer bioengineered engineerability engineerable engineered engineering nonengineered outengineer overengineer reengineer re-engineer retro-engineer reverse-engineer unengineered