engine

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for engine - Next: English, Prev: empire
:engine: /n./ 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but cant 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. 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 Babbages time, which explains why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the Analytical Engine.
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996* - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)*