The variation of meaning of "engine" in British and US English

Question

The term "search engine" is often translated more or less literally in other languages (e.g. Swedish "sökmaskin", Finnish "hakukone", which basically mean 'search machine'), and I have started wondering the background of the term. Am I correct in assuming that the word "engine" has a fairly restricted meaning (referring to an equipment that performs some physical work) in British English, whereas in US English it is used more freely to refer to different kinds of devices and things that perform some task?
Quoting Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
"engine

1 machine with moving parts that convents energy such as heat,electricity, etc into motion: - -

2 (also locomotive) machine that pulls or pushes a railway train: - -
3 (arch) machine or instrument: /engines of war/, eg cannons"

Only meaning 3, indicated as archaic, would constitute an understandable basis for forming the term "search engine".
Quoting Webster's New Encyclopedia Dictionary:
"engine

1 a : a mechanical tool (as an instrument of war or torture)b : a mechanical appliance - compare FIRE ENGINE

2 : a machine for converting energy into mechanical force and motion
3 : a railroad locomotive"

I guess 1a describes common, contemporary usage, and this is a fairly understandable basis for the meaning in "search engine" - which is not mechanical in the literal sense but in the common descriptive sense ('routinely performing' or even 'automated').

Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Usenet · Accepted Answer

The term "search engine" is often translated more or less literally in other languages (e.g. Swedish "sökmaskin", Finnish "hakukone", which basically mean 'search machine'), and I have started wondering the background of the term. Am I correct in assuming that the word "engine" has a fairly restricted meaning (referring to an equipment that performs some physical work) in British English, whereas in US English it is used more freely to refer to different kinds of devices and things
that perform some task?
Quoting Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
"engine

1 machine with moving parts that convents energy such as heat,electricity, etc into motion: - -

2 (also locomotive) machine that pulls or pushes a railway train: - -
3 (arch) machine or instrument: /engines of war/, eg cannons"

Only meaning 3, indicated as archaic, would constitute an understandable basis for forming the term "search engine".

Quoting Webster's New Encyclopedia Dictionary:
"engine

1 a : a mechanical tool (as an instrument of war or torture)b : a mechanical appliance - compare FIRE ENGINE

2 : a machine for converting energy into mechanical force and motion
3 : a railroad locomotive"

I guess 1a describes common, contemporary usage, and this is a fairly understandable basis for the meaning in "search engine" - which is not mechanical in the literal sense but in the common descriptive sense ('routinely performing' or even 'automated').
I am sure that it came from an intermediate form not in your dictionaries. The software industry has gone through several generations of names for subsystems. The relevant one, which is recent even in software terms, is engine. "Graphics engine"
"Audio engine"
Before that we had "system", "manager", ... .
It grated when it came out, and still grates a little.

I would take the closest meaning from above as the WNED 2: converting energy into computer cycles and then into graphics. It fails for me, because the energy to computer cycles part has already been done.
They should have used "machine".
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Am I correct in assuming that the word "engine" has a fairly restricted meaning (referring to an equipment that performs ... US English it is used more freely to refer to different kinds of devices and things that perform some task?[/nq]
What period ? Victorian era, the use of "engine" in this generic sense was almost commonplace in UK English. Nowadays it's obscure and rarely used, although easily enough understood. Apart from vehicles, I'd suggest the most common use of it would be in "steampunk" fiction, to deliberately create a neo-Victorian feel.
In America, I'd also hazard that cars have "motors" more often than "engines", when they almost never do in the UK.

Smert' spamionam

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The term "search engine" is often translated more or less literally in other languages (e.g. Swedish "sökmaskin", Finnish "hakukone", which ... US English it is used more freely to refer to different kinds of devices and things that perform some task?[/nq]
Englishman Charles Babbidge invented mechanical computing devices that he called difference and analytical engines.

Mike Nitabach

Usenet · Answer

Jukka Korpela:
[nq:2]Am I correct in assuming that the word "engine" has ... different kinds of devices and things that perform some task?[/nq]
No, I don't think this is a US/British difference.

Mike Nitabach:
[nq:1]Englishman Charles Babbidge invented mechanical computing devices that he called difference and analytical engines.[/nq]
That's Babbage, actually.
Incidentally, the difference engine was previously invented by J.H. Mueller (ue = u-umlaut), of the Hessian army, and the first people to successfully build one were George and Edvard Scheutz of Sweden. But it's the analytical engine that really foreshadowed the computer as we know it today, and that was all Babbage's. (It was, of course, never completed.)

Mark Brader, Toronto > "I wish to *** these calculations had been (Email Removed) > executed by steam!" Charles Babbage, 1821

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The term "search engine" is often translated more or less literally in other languages (e.g. Swedish "sökmaskin", Finnish "hakukone", which ... war/, eg cannons" Only meaning 3, indicated as archaic, would constitute an understandable basis for forming the term "search engine".[/nq]
I disagree. The software component properly called a "search engine" is a reasonable analogue of, for instance, the engine of a car. It contains the intricate mechanisms that provide essential functionality, and in normal use are entirely hidden from view.
That rather specialised computer engineering term has leaked out into general usage to mean "search facility".
When you look at things that way, meaning 1 is a perfectly rational basis for the term "search engine".

Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]In America, I'd also hazard that cars have "motors" more often than "engines", when they almost never do in the UK.[/nq]
No pondian difference here. A motor is something powered by electrickery. An engine is a combustion device of some sort (either internal or external) with pistons and cranks and such, or latterly, a rotary thing such as a turbine or a Wankel.

Mike Connally Reading, England Had to take action 'against spam'. Remove those words to reply.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]In America, I'd also hazard that cars have "motors" more often than "engines", when they almost never do in the UK.[/nq]
[nq:1]No pondian difference here. A motor is something powered by electrickery. An engine is a combustion device of some sort (either internal or external) with pistons and cranks and such, or latterly, a rotary thing such as a turbine or a Wankel.[/nq]
So why does my boat have an outboard motor, and not a outboard engine?

Don Aitken
Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]In America, I'd also hazard that cars have "motors" more often than "engines", when they almost never do in the UK.[/nq]
[nq:1]No pondian difference here. A motor is something powered by electrickery. An engine is a combustion device of some sort (either internal or external) with pistons and cranks and such, or latterly, a rotary thing such as a turbine or a Wankel.[/nq]
But a motor (or, technically, a mo'or) can also be the whole car, innit?

Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]No pondian difference here. A motor is something powered by electrickery. An engine is a combustion device of some sort (either internal or external) with pistons and cranks and such, or latterly, a rotary thing such as a turbine or a Wankel.[/nq]
In strict technical usage, a motor is something that transforms one form of work to another (e.g., electricity to rotary motion) and an engine converts energy from one form to another, usually heat to work. The Second Law applies to heat engines, but not to motors. The First Law applies to both.

In common usage and in loose technical usage they are synonyms.

John Varela
(Trade "OLD" lamps for "NEW" for email.)
I apologize for munging the address but the spam was too much.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]In strict technical usage,[/nq]
Says who ? In rocketry, established local convention is that "engines" have moving parts, "motors" don't (i.e. they're solid fuel). This is just a local accepted usage though, no-one would claim it had any wider application.
[nq:1]The Second Law applies to heat engines, but not to motors.[/nq]
Only on Usenet and Keelynet.

If we fail, then let us fail heroically
(or even better, stoichiometrically)

The variation of meaning of "engine" in British and US English

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