Noun

(en noun)

A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.

* {{quote-magazine, title=A better waterworks, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838

, page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine . Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.}}

(archaic) A vehicle operated mechanically; an automobile.

(telephony, abbreviation) An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.

(computing) A computer.

(figuratively) A person or organisation that seemingly acts like a machine, being particularly efficient, single-minded, or unemotional.

Especially, the group that controls a political or similar organization; a combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use.

* Landor

The whole machine of government ought not to bear upon the people with a weight so heavy and oppressive.

Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.

(Addison)

(euphemistic, obsolete) Penis.

{{quote-Fanny Hill, part=3 , He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself standing between them, made them rest upon his hips; applying then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance.}}

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