beam engine

British  

noun

1. an early type of steam engine, in which a pivoted beam is vibrated by a vertical steam cylinder at one end, so that it transmits motion to the workload, such as a pump, at the other end

---

Example Sentences

Whatever it was, this pattern of invisible winds and movements seemed to him to operate as a kind of unseen atmospheric seesaw, a beam engine balance around a central pivot lying somewhere smack dab in the center of the ocean.

From Salon

In fifth place, with 10% of the votes, was the Crossness Engine House, and the James Watt rotative beam engine.

From BBC

"Old designs but new customers," said Jemma Baskeyfield, an archivist at Denby, one of the UK's big pottery players, which bought Middleport from the Dowlings in 2010 but could not fund restoration of the buildings, which include a vast but rusty Lancashire boiler and a steam-powered beam engine which ran until 2007.

From The Guardian

Not just because I am actually quite interested in the workings of a Newcomen beam engine, invented in the early 18th century to pump water out of mines.

From The Guardian

Previously every engine for pumping, the only practical purpose to which steam was yet put, was worked by a beam engine and pair of cylinders.

From Project Gutenberg