engine

The Levant Beam Engine, near Pendeen in Cornwall, is more than one hundred and fifty years old. Originally used to pump water out of the tin mine below ground, and to bring ore and miners up to the surface, the engine lay idle for 60 years, before being restored to full working order in the 1990s as a tourist attraction.

The first beam engines, early types of steam engine, were patented by Richard Trevithick, a Cornish mining engineer, in the first decade of the 19th century. They were used to pump water out of the mine and to bring men and ore to the surface. In recent years several engines and engine houses have been fully restored.

Device for converting stored energy into useful work or movement. Most engines use a fuel as their energy store. The fuel is burnt to produce heat energy – hence the name ‘heat engine’ – which is then converted into movement. Heat engines can be classified according to the fuel they use (petrol engine or diesel engine), or according to whether the fuel is burnt inside (internal combustion engine) or outside (steam engine) the engine, or according to whether they produce a reciprocating or a rotary motion (turbine or Wankel engine).

engine

In computing, core piece of software around which other features and functions are built. A database search engine, for example, accepts user input and handles the processing necessary to find matches between the user input and the database records.

In a computer game, the term ‘engine’ is also used to refer to the core software that allows users to move around the game's levels and pick up weapons and treasure.