steam engine

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noun

an engine worked by steam, typically one in which a sliding piston in a cylinder is moved by the expansive action of the steam generated in a boiler.

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Origin of steam engine

First recorded in 1745–55

OTHER WORDS FROM steam engine

steam-engine, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use steam engine in a sentence

The jet engine instantly brought two advances over propellers: it doubled the speed and it was far more reliable.
Flight 8501 Poses Question: Are Modern Jets Too Automated to Fly?|Clive Irving|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
An F-35 was destroyed on takeoff earlier in the year when a design flaw in its Pratt & Whitney F135 engine sparked a fire.
New U.S. Stealth Jet Can’t Fire Its Gun Until 2019|Dave Majumdar|December 31, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Texas has also started to become an engine of economic growth.
Will Texas Stay Texan?|David Fontana|December 29, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In 2006, the firm presided over a routine steam-injection procedure known as “well stimulation.”
The Fiery Underground Oil Pit Eating L.A.|Geoff Manaugh|December 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Clearly, the least cool people are the most in-demand: the rich folks who power the Art Basel engine.
Sneer and Clothing in Miami: Inside The $3 Billion Woodstock of Contemporary Art|Jay Michaelson|December 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
A colossal steam "traveller" had ceaselessly carried great blocks of stone and long steel girders from point to point.
The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills
Two huge steam engines had snorted and puffed for three whole years.
The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills
Greenlaw (Charles P.), his efforts in obtaining steam for India, 560.
Notes and Queries, Index to Eighth Volume, July-December 1853|Various
The steamboat of 1809 and the steam locomotive of 1830 were the direct result of what had gone before.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice|Stephen Leacock
The Comet started on her first trip up the Arkansas, being the first steam boat that ascended that river.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology|Joel Munsell

British Dictionary definitions for steam engine

steam-engine

noun

an engine that uses the thermal energy of steam to produce mechanical work, esp one in which steam from a boiler is expanded in a cylinder to drive a reciprocating piston

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

Scientific definitions for steam engine

steam engine

An engine in which the energy of hot steam is converted into mechanical power, especially an engine in which the force of expanding steam is used to drive one or more pistons. The source of the steam is typically external to the part of the machine that converts the steam energy into mechanical energy. Compare internal-combustion engine.