engineer

noun

1. (also, figuratively)A soldier engaged in designing or constructing military works for attack or defence, or other engineering works.

   “For tis the ſport to haue the enginer / Hoiſt with his ovvne petar, an't ſhall goe hard / But I vvill delue one yard belovve their mines, / And blovve them at the Moone: […]”

   “Novv he began another Trade, and became an Ingenor, hauing got eight Fire-brands of hell more to him, onely of purpoſe to ſet our houſe a fire.”

   “Cannons vpon their Carriage mounted are, / VVhole Battery Fraunce muſt feele vpon her VValls, / The Engineer prouiding the Petar, / To breake the ſtrong Percullice, and the Balls / Of VVild fire deuis'd to throvv from farre, / To burne to ground their Pallaces and Halls: […]”

   “But your Lordships must have heard with astonishment, that, upon points of law, relative to the tenure of lands, instead of producing any law document or authority on the usages and local customs of the country, he has referred to officers in the army, colonels of artillery and engineers, to young gentlemen just come from school, not above three or four years in the country.”

   “And she began praising Hereward's valour, his fame, his eloquence, his skill as a general and engineer; and when he suggested, smiling, that he was an exile and an outlaw, she insisted he was all the fitter from that very fact.”

2. (also, figuratively, obsolete)A soldier in charge of operating a weapon; an artilleryman, a gunner.

   “This is hard welcome, but it was not you, / At whom the fatal enginer did ayme, / My breaſt the levell was, though you the marke, / In which conſpiracie anſwere me Duke, / Is not thy ſoule as guiltie as the Earles?”

   “Wit's an unruly engine, wildly ſtriking / Sometimes a friend, ſometimes the engineer.”

   “An Author who points his ſatyr at a great man, is to be looked upon in the ſame view with the engineer who ſignalized himſelf by this ungenerous practice.”

   “In war he [the poet] is the most deadly force of the war. Who recruits him recruits horse and foot … he fetches parks of artillery the best that engineer ever knew.”

3. (broadly)A person professionally engaged in the technical design and construction of large-scale private and public works such as bridges, buildings, harbours, railways, roads, etc.; a civil engineer.

   “[T]o an Enginer alſo, vvho promiſed to bring into the Capitoll huge Columnes vvith ſmall charges, hee gave for his deviſe no meane revvard; and releaſed him his labour in performing that vvorke, ſaying vvithall by vvay of preface, That he ſhould ſuffer him to feed the poore commons.”

4. (broadly)Originally, a person engaged in designing, constructing, or maintaining engines or machinery; now (more generally), a person qualified or professionally engaged in any branch of engineering, or studying to do so.

   “Macanopoietico, an inginer, an engine-maker.”

   “[N]ear St. Laurence-Lane his lordship receives an entertainment from an unparalleled masterpiece of art, called the Crystal Sanctuary, styled by the name of the Temple of Integrity, […] and more to express the invention and the art of the engineer, as also for motion, variety, and the content of the spectators, this Crystal Temple is made to open in many parts, at fit and convenient times, and upon occasion of the speech; […]”

   “Somehow, everybody who isn’t in sales, marketing, or design became an engineer. “We’re hiring engineers,” read startup websites, which could mean anything from Javascript^([sic]) programmers to roboticists.”

5. (broadly, historical)A person trained to operate an engine.

   “The machinery [the steam engine] has proved, like the balloon, unmanageable, and flies away with the aeronaut. Steam, from the first, hissed and screamed to warn him; it was dreadful with its explosion, and crushed the engineer. The machinist has wrought and watched, engineers and firemen without number have been sacrificed in learning to tame and guide the monster.”

   “The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.”

   “One of the stokers was disabled, the others had given in, the second engineer and the donkey-man were firing-up. The third engineer was standing by the steam-valve. The engines were being tended by hand.”

6. (US, broadly)A person trained to operate an engine.
7. (US, broadly)A person trained to operate an engine.
8. (broadly)Preceded by a qualifying word: a person who uses abilities or knowledge to manipulate events or people.

   “a political engineer”

   “Now that I may not ſeem to paſs my Cenſure raſhly, I deſire that my more intelligent Readers will pleaſe to reduce the following things into Meaning, if they can, and favour us with the Interpretation; being ſome particular Account of the Life of this famous, religious Ingineer, for I know not what elſe to call him, and the Titles of ſome of his Books.”

9. (broadly, derogatory, often)A person who formulates plots or schemes; a plotter, a schemer.

   “But the trimme ſilke-worme I looked for (as it were in a proper contempt of common fineneſſe) prooveth but a ſilly glow-woorme, and the dreadfull enginer of phraſes, in steede of thunderboltes, ſhooteth nothing but dogboltes and catboltes, and the homelieſt boltes of rude folly: […]”

   “No Silius, vve are no good Inginers; / VVe vvant the fine Artes, & their thriuing vſe / Should make vs grac'd, or fauour'd of the Times: / […] / VVe burne vvith no black ſecrets, vvhich can make / Vs deare to the pale Authors; or liue fear'd / Of their ſtill vvaking iealoſies, to raiſe / Our ſelues a Fortune, by ſubuerting theirs.”

   “[T]he fighting men of England, masters of destruction, engineers of death!”

10. An honorific title given to engineers before their name.

verb

1. (transitive)To employ one's abilities and knowledge as an engineer to design, construct, and/or maintain (something, such as a machine or a structure), usually for industrial or public use.
2. (specifically, transitive)To use genetic engineering to alter or construct (a DNA sequence), or to alter (an organism).

   “In an interesting animal study, scientists engineered mice with a specific gene defect that caused memory and learning problems.”

3. (transitive)To plan or achieve (a goal) by contrivance or guile; to finagle, to wangle.
4. (intransitive)To formulate plots or schemes; to plot, to scheme.
5. (intransitive, rare)To work as an engineer.

   “What of the grand tools with which we engineer, like kobolds and enchanters,—tunnelling Alps, canalling the American Isthmus, piercing the Arabian desert?”