Newcomen

American

[noo-kuhm-uhn, nyoo-] / nuˈkʌm ən, nyu- /

noun

Thomas, 1663–1729, English inventor.

Newcomen British

/ ˈnjuːˌkʌmən /

noun

Thomas. 1663–1729, English engineer who invented a steam engine, which James Watt later modified and developed

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Newcomen Scientific

/ no̅o̅′kə-mən /

English inventor who developed an early steam engine (1711) that was was widely used to pump water in coal mines.

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.

By 1800 Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen had invented, and James Watt and Matthew Boulton had refined, the steam engine.

From Scientific American • Apr. 20, 2020

The Newcomen engine pumped water from British coal mines for more than 200 years.

From Washington Post • Oct. 18, 2018

"The sweeping whole-system reform envisaged has yet to be delivered," writes Prison and Probation Ombudsman Nigel Newcomen in his bulletin on female prison suicide this week.

From BBC • Mar. 29, 2017

A Devonian ironmonger, Newcomen built his device to pump water out of the south west’s prolific tin mines.

From The Guardian • Sep. 27, 2016

Our puzzle is that we have Newcomen in Dartmouth in or around 1698, and we can see no way in which knowledge of the steam engine can reach him.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023