Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.
  • noun One who operates an engine.
  • noun One who skillfully or shrewdly manages an enterprise.
  • transitive verb To plan, construct, or manage as an engineer.
  • transitive verb To alter or produce by methods of genetic engineering.
  • transitive verb To plan, manage, and bring about by skillful acts or contrivance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person skilled in the principles and practice of any department of engineering.
  • noun An engine-driver; one who manages an engine; a person who has charge of an engine and its connected machinery, as on board a steam-vessel.
  • noun One who carries through any scheme or enterprise by skill or artful contrivance; a manager.
  • noun The title of an officer of the corps of civil engineers of the United States Navy. See corps.
  • noun An official grade of governmental engineering officers in some countries, as in France.
  • To plan and direct the formation or carrying out of; direct as an engineer: as, to engineer a canal or a tunnel.
  • To work upon; ply; try some scheme or plan upon.
  • To guide or manage by ingenuity and tact; conduct through or over obstacles by contrivance and effort: as, to engineer a bill through Congress.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A person skilled in the principles and practice of any branch of engineering. See under engineering, n.
  • noun One who manages as engine, particularly a steam engine; an engine driver.
  • noun colloq. One who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance; an efficient manager.
  • noun a person skilled in the science of civil engineering.
  • noun one who executes engineering works of a military nature. See under Engineering.
  • transitive verb To lay out or construct, as an engineer; to perform the work of an engineer on.
  • transitive verb colloq. To use contrivance and effort for; to guide the course of; to manage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who is qualified or professionally engaged in any branch of engineering.
  • noun A person trained in a natural science that applies such knowledge towards a practical objective.
  • noun A person who, given a practical scientific problem involving the physical world and a specific set of goals and constraints, finds a technical solution to the problem that satisfies those goals within those constraints. The goals and constraints may be technical, social, or business related.
  • noun A person who operates an engine (such as a locomotive).
  • verb transitive To design, construct or manage something as an engineer.
  • verb transitive To alter or construct something by means of genetic engineering.
  • verb transitive To plan or achieve some goal by contrivance or guile; to wangle or finagle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb design as an engineer
  • noun the operator of a railway locomotive
  • noun a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems
  • verb plan and direct (a complex undertaking)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English enginour, from Old French engigneor, from Medieval Latin ingeniātor, contriver, from ingeniāre, to contrive, from Latin ingenium, ability; see engine.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English engineour, from Old French engignier, from Medieval Latin ingeniarius, from ingenium ("an engine"), from in ("in") + gignere ("to beget, produce"), Old Latin genere; see ingenious; or from engine +‎ -eer.

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Examples

  • A train engineer is lulled to sleep by the monotony of the job and misses a signal.

    Transportation safety: Efforts to curb fatigue-related accidents often languish Tessa Muggeridge 2010

  • A train engineer is lulled to sleep by the monotony of the job and misses a signal.

    Transportation safety: Efforts to curb fatigue-related accidents often languish Tessa Muggeridge 2010

  • In contrast, the term engineer is often associated with someone called out to repair a photocopier or gas boiler, where they are often dressed in clothing that is functional rather than a suit.

    The Engineer - News 2010

  • D. from two of the world’s finest engineering schools, a sizable handful of publications in peer-reviewed engineering and scientific journals (and a number more at large conferences), and am currently a working engineer consulting to the nuclear power industry in Ontario (where, incidentally, it is illegal for an unqualified person such as yourself to use the title engineer).

    Exploring the Legality of DAJ’s request « UDreamOfJanie 2006

  • The exact words of the engineer is that the block alone provides little actual structural support in the case of an earthquake.

    Cinder block vs brick 2009

  • The exact words of the engineer is that the block alone provides little actual structural support in the case of an earthquake.

    Cinder block vs brick 2009

  • In September, a commuter train engineer missed a stop signal while trading text messages with a friend, leading to a collision with a freight train that killed 25 people in California, according to federal investigators.

    Senators push nationwide ban on texting while driving 2009

  • The exact words of the engineer is that the block alone provides little actual structural support in the case of an earthquake.

    Cinder block vs brick 2009

  • Matthews, a full-time network engineer, is the main financial backer, but Sawyers — a geotechnical engineer — played a key role: When the men needed more space, they moved their winery from Matthews 'basement to the garage of Sawyers' mom.

    'Naysayers' prove strong for Michael Matthews, wine bar 2010

  • The exact words of the engineer is that the block alone provides little actual structural support in the case of an earthquake.

    Cinder block vs brick 2009

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