engineer
Americannoun
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engineers
plural
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a person trained and skilled in the design, construction, and use of engines or machines, or in any of various branches of engineering.
a mechanical engineer; a civil engineer.
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a person who operates or is in charge of an engine.
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Also called locomotive engineer. Railroads. a person who operates or is in charge of a locomotive.
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a member of an army, navy, or air force specially trained in engineering work.
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Digital Technology. a person skilled in the design and programming of computer systems.
a software engineer;
a web engineer.
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a skillful manager.
a political engineer.
verb (used with object)
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engineers,
present (3rd person singular)
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engineered,
past participle, past
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engineering
present participle
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to plan, construct, or manage as an engineer.
He's engineered several big industrial projects.
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to design or create using the techniques or methods of engineering.
The motor has been engineered to run noiselessly.
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to arrange, manage, or carry through by skillful or artful contrivance.
He certainly engineered the election campaign beautifully.
noun
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a person trained in any branch of the profession of engineering
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the originator or manager of a situation, system, etc
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a mechanic; person who repairs or services machines
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the driver of a railway locomotive
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an officer responsible for a ship's engines
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Informal name: sapper. a member of the armed forces, esp the army, trained in engineering and construction work
verb
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to originate, cause, or plan in a clever or devious manner
he engineered the minister's downfall
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to design, plan, or construct as a professional engineer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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engineersimple
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engineerssimple
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have engineeredperfect
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has engineeredperfect
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am engineeringprogressive
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are engineeringprogressive
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is engineeringprogressive
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have been engineeringperfect progressive
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has been engineeringperfect progressive
Past
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engineeredsimple
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had engineeredperfect
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was engineeringprogressive
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were engineeringprogressive
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had been engineeringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of engineer
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English; engine + -eer; replacing Middle English engin(e)our, from Anglo-French engineor, Old French engigneor, from Medieval Latin ingeniātor, from ingeniā(re) “to design, devise” (derivative of ingenium “nature, innate quality, mental power, clever invention”; engine ) + Latin -tor -tor
Explanation
An engineer is someone who possesses the knowledge or expertise to create and implement plans or build machines. Even if you're not an engineer, when you engineer you make plans and solve problems. An interesting part of the word engineer is the suffix -eer, which turns a word into one that means someone who does something indicated by the base it is affixed to — a mountaineer climbs mountains, an auctioneer presides at auctions, an engineer designs, coming from the Old French engin, which means "skill or cleverness." If you want to become an engineer, you'll have to study all kinds of mechanical systems, not just engines.
Vocabulary lists containing engineer
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Apparently, his tablemate William Benedict, a software engineer from West Hollywood who drove the R8, was skeptical about all the love for the Mazda roadster.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
An economic planner and later an engineer at the State Planning Commission, Zhu was purged twice during the tumultuous early decades of the People's Republic.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
A Samsung Electronics chip engineer, appearing on a dating show recently, attracted interest from three different women.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
The station director noticed the issue only when he heard continuous music instead of the scheduled programme and contacted the engineer, who was aware of the issue and was already investigating.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
Nor was Galileo, when he invented the hydraulic press, working on some new, practical problem that only a competent engineer could tackle.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
“Samsung chip engineers haven’t traditionally had to think about this type of stuff,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
The effort, known as the "Big Bang," was carried out by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
The couple, who are both engineers, had just finished a monthlong, 538-mile cycling trip through the U.K., starting in Inverness, Scotland, and ending in Penzance, England, near the western tip of Cornwall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Kumar has been waiting since 2019 for the state to recruit assistant engineers.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
To the engineers of America, however, this embrace of Eiffel was a slap in the face.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
“It’s become clear that this product engineered stone countertops ... cannot be manufactured safely and economically,” said David Michaels, professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University and co-author of the study.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Streets were engineered to move vehicles as quickly as possible, while the one road user every citizen inevitably becomes - the pedestrian - largely disappeared from planners' imagination.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Before much cooking can occur, however, Gruel explains that many Americans are addicted to processed foods because those foods have been chemically engineered to be addictive.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
RP1 is engineered to kill tumor cells directly and then trigger a broader immune response.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Genetically engineered bees were developed in 2092, but could only provide sixty-three percent of natural function.
From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Popular subjects include health and social care, applied science, construction, engineering, business and art and design.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
"This is a multidisciplinary study between space science and space engineering," says corresponding author Mamoru Yamamoto.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026
A spokesperson for StubHub said the operations and support budget doesn’t include some expenses related to fraud protection, technology and engineering.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
Strong AI-related demand helped the electronics and precision engineering clusters of the manufacturing sector, as well as the machinery, equipment and supplies segment of the wholesale trade sector, it said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
In engineering parlance, it embodied little “dead load,” the static weight of immobile masses of brick and steel.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
