ˈfire-engine
[f. fire n. + engine.]
1. A machine for throwing water to extinguish fires.
| c 1680 Sir S. Morland's Pumps Broadside, Brit. Mus. 816 m. 10. 90 For a Fire Engin with one Pair of Handles..Twenty three pound. 1725 Desaguliers Exper. Philos. (1744) II. 505–519 heading, Mr. Newsham's Fire-Engine. 1755 Franklin Let. Wks. 1887 II. 405 A stream [of water] from a fire-engine will force through the strongest panes of a window. 1806 O. Gregory Mech. (1807) II. 175 Fire engine [is] the name now commonly given to a machine by which water is thrown upon fires to extinguish them. 1836 Dickens Sk. Boz, Parish i, The services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required. |
2. A steam-engine. Obs. exc. local.
| 1722 Barnes in Brand Hist. Newcastle (1789) II. 685 note, The charge of water was calculated as if to be drawn by horses, whereas it may be done much cheaper by help of a fire engine. 1750 Franklin Wks. (1887) II. 164 They waited for a fire-engine from England to drain their pits. 1806 O. Gregory Mech. (1807) II. 353 This [i.e. the steam engine] has often been called the Fire-engine, because of the fire used in boiling the liquid. 1867 W. W. Smyth Coal & Coal-mining 6 Newcomen appears..to have first tried his ‘fire-engine’ on the large scale at a colliery near Wolverhampton. 1880 W. Cornw. Gloss., Fire-engine, a steam-engine. |
† 3. A heating apparatus. Obs. rare.
| 1708 J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. i. i. iii. (1743) 9 One fire-engine conveys warm air to every individual Part of the Machine [Lombe's machine for thrown silk]. |