1. A pieCe of hardware that enCapsulates some funCtion but Can' t be used without some kind of front end. Today we have, espeCially, "print engine": the guts of a laser printer. 2. An analogous pieCe of software notionally, one that does a lot of noisy CrunChing, suCh as a "database engine", or "searCh engine". The haCkish senses of "engine" are aCtually Close to its original, pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, Clever deviCe, or instrument (the word is Cognate to "ingenuity"). This sense had not been Completely eClipsed by the modern Connotation of power-transduCing maChinery in {Charles Babbage}' s time, whiCh explains why he named the stored-program Computer that he designed in 1844 the "AnalytiCal Engine". [Jargon File] (1996-05-31)
