engineer

American  

[en-juh-neer] / ˌɛn dʒəˈnɪər /

noun

• engineers
  plural

1. 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.

2. a person who operates or is in charge of an engine.

3. Also called locomotive engineer.  Railroads. a person who operates or is in charge of a locomotive.

4. a member of an army, navy, or air force specially trained in engineering work.

5. Digital Technology. a person skilled in the design and programming of computer systems.

   a software engineer;

   a web engineer.

6. a skillful manager.

   a political engineer.

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verb (used with object)

• engineers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• engineered,
  past participle,  past
• engineering
  present participle

1. to plan, construct, or manage as an engineer.

   He's engineered several big industrial projects.

2. to design or create using the techniques or methods of engineering.

   The motor has been engineered to run noiselessly.

3. to arrange, manage, or carry through by skillful or artful contrivance.

   He certainly engineered the election campaign beautifully.

engineer British  

/ ˌɛndʒɪˈnɪə /

noun

1. a person trained in any branch of the profession of engineering

2. the originator or manager of a situation, system, etc

3. a mechanic; person who repairs or services machines

4. the driver of a railway locomotive

5. an officer responsible for a ship's engines

6. Informal name: sapper.  a member of the armed forces, esp the army, trained in engineering and construction work

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verb

1. to originate, cause, or plan in a clever or devious manner

   he engineered the minister's downfall

2. to design, plan, or construct as a professional engineer

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• subengineer
  noun
• unengineered
  adjective
• well-engineered
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• engineers
  plural

Participles

• engineering
  present
• engineered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• engineer
  simple
• engineers
  simple
• have engineered
  perfect
• has engineered
  perfect
• am engineering
  progressive
• are engineering
  progressive
• is engineering
  progressive
• have been engineering
  perfect progressive
• has been engineering
  perfect progressive

Past

• engineered
  simple
• had engineered
  perfect
• was engineering
  progressive
• were engineering
  progressive
• had been engineering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will engineer
  simple
• will have engineered
  perfect
• will be engineering
  progressive
• will have been engineering
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

engineer engineers engineered engineering

“If I can foresee this, then I think an engineer who’s designing the product can foresee it too.”

From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026

A former engineer at the company, Béjar has claimed for years that Meta’s child-safety tools were ineffective and that top executives knew its products were harming children.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026

The development of the spacecraft's landing legs was particularly difficult as gravity on Phobos is extremely low, according to Akinari Uehara, a Mitsubishi Electric engineer.

From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026

According to Mr. Scholz, during the mixing of their first album, an assistant engineer suggested the band call itself Boston.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026

An engineer, she passed every test given and knew what to do in space.

From "Women in Space" by Karen Bush Gibson

We've got technical engineers on site, our best experts who are on site with the Rail Accident Investigation Branch.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

Here’s what she’s learned: When technology doesn’t graduate beyond the demo stage, the problem is often that inventors and engineers are so enamored with their own creation that they assume it will find a home.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

AI is the latest chapter in a long history of oil-and-gas engineers expanding the frontiers of exploration and squeezing more hydrocarbons from fields.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

He said he's realised that heavy reliance on AI tools in large tech companies "creates a bad culture with excess pressure on engineers".

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

As a young man, Blaise invented a mechanical calculating machine, named the Pascaline, which is similar to some of the mechanical calculators that engineers used before the invention of the electronic calculator.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

“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

Despite being only a fraction of a nanometer thick, the engineered interface performs two important jobs.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 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

He’s spent four years on an experiment looking at whether a particular kind of scientifically engineered video game could improve the attention span and memory of people over the age of sixty.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

Abhinav Gorthy and co-corresponding author Rashmi Jha, chemical engineering and materials science, University of Minnesota, also contributed.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026

Although he understood Opel's need to remain competitive globally, he worried that a strategy of cutting German engineering expertise could eventually "come back to haunt them in the long run".

From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026

After earning a bachelor’s degree and a mechanical engineering master’s from MIT, Mr. Scholz went to work for Polaroid in Cambridge, Mass., in 1970.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026

“DeepMind from its very early days was focused on a very particular type of artificial intelligence, reinforcement learning,” Benjamin Lee, an engineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026

Mechanical engineering depends on two main forces: compression and tension.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Related Words

• arrange
• come up with
• conceive
• concoct
• create
• direct
• manage
• manipulate
• negotiate
• organize
• set up
• supervise