engaged, ppl. a.
(ɛnˈgeɪdʒd)
[f. engage v. + -ed1.]
1. In various senses of the verb. a. † Entangled. b. † Obliged, attached by gratitude. c. Locked in fight. d. That is under a promise to marry; betrothed. Hence engaged ring (? Obs.) = engagement ring.
| 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 137 The sands..with a lingring cruelty swallowed the ingaged. 1665 Walton Life Hooker I. 99 Not as an engaged person, but indifferently. 1673 Vain Insol. Rome 12 Your engaged well wishing Friend and Servant. 1692 Locke Toleration iii. iii, This.. is..like an engaged Enemy, to vent one's Spleen upon a Party. 1719 De Foe Crusoe (1858) 219 Never man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to me..perfectly obliged and engaged. 1869 London Society XVI. 513 (title) The Engaged Ring. a 1870 Dickens E. Drood iii, It is so absurd to be an engaged orphan. 1873 C. M. Yonge Pillars of House II. xxii. 252 It is not a proper engaged-ring. You can't wear it. a 1891 Mod. At a certain party last week, there were six engaged couples. |
2. a. Arch. engaged column, one partly let into a wall in the rear. engaged tower (see quot.). b. Mech. engaged wheels, wheels in gear with each other. The driver is the engaging wheel, and the follower is the wheel engaged.
| 1847 Engl. Ecclesiology 154 Of the quadrangular tower there are two varieties: the one where it is engaged, i.e. has the aisles flush with its western face. 1867 A. Barry Sir C. Barry ii. 51 Engaged columns—colonnades walled up. 1880 C. T. Newton Ess. Archæol. iii. 83 A Doric peristyle with engaged columns. 1882 Athenæum No. 2859. 212 The later pillars of the nave..are accompanied by eight engaged shafts. 1886 Ibid. 21 Aug. 248/1 The church at Acton possesses what is called an engaged tower. |
3. Teleph. Of a number or line: in use and therefore unavailable to a second caller; of a person: telephoning. Hence engaged signal, engaged-test, engaged-tone.
| 1891 J. Poole Pract. Telephone Handbk. viii. 151 (heading) Engaged test. Ibid. 153 If she then hears a click in her receiver, she knows that the number is engaged. Ibid. 154 If a subscriber's line is engaged. 1893 Preece & Stubbs Man. Telephony xvi. 271 (heading) Switch with distinct ‘engaged signal’ circuit. 1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah iii. 137 Engaged! Who is she calling up now? 1927 Electr. Communication VI. i. 14/2 If the busy signal is heard in the receiver..then the called subscriber is engaged. 1935 G. Greene England made Me i. 17, I hoped it was the engaged tone, but I knew it was the ringing tone. |
4. A term of literary and artistic criticism: = committed ppl. a. b. (Cf. engagé ppl. a.)
| 1947 J. Hayward Prose Lit. since 1939 47 This is not to say that literature must become ‘engaged’, as one school of continental writers now insists; that it must..‘take sides’ in the social revolution. 1957 Observer 27 Oct. 14/3 He [sc. Fran{cced}ois Mauriac] had written a rather wry little note in L'Express, suggesting that I had treated him, in his capacity as an ‘engaged’ writer, like some sole-surviving specimen of an extinct race. 1958 Sunday Times 20 July 6/5 The faults usual in ‘engaged’ literature. |
Hence † enˈgagedly adv. Obs., in an engaged or interested manner; with the feeling of a partisan.
| 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 233 (T.) Engagedly biassed to one side or the other. |