Other forms: engineering, engineers, engineered
An engineer is somebody who designs and builds machines, structures or systems. A civil engineer, a software engineer, the engineer who fixed the boiler.
The word covers a wide range, from a chartered engineer with a degree to the person who comes to repair the broadband, and that breadth is peculiar to English — in much of Europe the title is protected and means only the qualified profession. As a verb, to engineer means to arrange something cleverly and usually secretly: he engineered the whole thing. That use is faintly disapproving, which the noun is not at all.
1nounengineerSomebody who designs or builds machines, structures or systems.
“The engineers found the fault in an afternoon.”
2nounrepairsSomebody who repairs or maintains equipment.
“An engineer is coming out on Tuesday.”
3verbarrangeTo arrange something cleverly, often secretly.
“He engineered a meeting that was supposed to look accidental.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
engineer is a profession.
The word comes from engine in its older sense of ingenuity, from Latin ingenium, natural cleverness. An engineer was originally somebody who built military engines — catapults and siege towers — and the word for a clever contrivance became the word for the person who thought of it.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
English, today
engineer
The noun is derived from:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA