Noun

(en noun)

(literally)   The arrangement of support beams that represent a building's general shape and size.

(figuratively)   The larger branches of a tree that determine its shape.

(figuratively, especially in, computing)   A basic conceptual structure.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April

, author=John T. Jost , title=Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)? , volume=100, issue=2, page=162 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.}}

These ‘three principles of connexion’ comprise the framework of principles in Hume's account of the association of ideas.

(literally)   The identification and categorisation of processes or steps that constitute a complex task or mindset in order to render explicit the tacit and implicit.

Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) Ingenuity; cunning, trickery, guile.

(obsolete) The result of cunning; something ingenious, a contrivance; (in negative senses) a plot, a scheme.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , II.i:

Therefore this craftie engine he did frame, / Against his praise to stirre vp enmitye [...].

(obsolete) Natural talent; genius.

Anything used to effect a purpose; any device or contrivance; an agent.

* Bunyan

You see the ways the fisherman doth take / To catch the fish; what engines doth he make?

* Shakespeare

Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust.

A large construction used in warfare, such as a battering ram, catapult etc.

* 1714 , (Bernard Mandeville), The Fable of the Bees :

Flattery must be the most powerful Argument that cou'd be used to Human Creatures. Making use of this bewitching Engine , they extoll'd the Excellency of our Nature above other Animals [...].

A complex mechanical device which converts energy into useful motion or physical effects.

A person or group of people which influence a larger group; a driving force.

The part of a car or other vehicle which provides the force for motion, now especially one powered by internal combustion.

A self-powered vehicle, especially a locomotive, used for pulling cars along a track.

(computing) A software or hardware system responsible for a specific technical task (usually with qualifying word).

a graphics engine'''; a physics '''engine