Other forms: motors
A motor is the part of a machine that makes it turn. Electricity in, movement out.
Strictly a motor runs on electricity and an engine burns fuel, though everyday English blurs the two and car engines have been called motors for a century. That is why we have the motorway, the motorbike, the motorist and the Motor Show. As an adjective in medicine it means to do with movement, so motor skills are the ability to control the body. British informal speech uses motor for a car outright.
1nounmotorA device that converts power into movement.
“The motor in the fan has burnt out.”
2adjectiverelatingRelating to muscular movement.
“The illness affects motor control.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
A motor is simply a mover: Latin mōtor, from mōtō, to set in motion. In Middle English motour could mean the prime mover, which is to say God.
Latin
mōtor
Middle English
motour
English, today
motor
Built from
From Middle English motour, from Latin mōtor. From Middle English motour (“controller, prime mover; God”), from Latin mōtor (“mover; that which moves something”), from mōtō (“to set in motion”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA