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engage

verb
/ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/

Etymology

From Middle English engagen, from Old French engagier (“to pledge, engage”), from Frankish *anwadjōn (“to pledge”), from Proto-Germanic *an-, *andi- + Proto-Germanic *wadjōną (“to pledge, secure”), from Proto-Germanic *wadją (“pledge, guarantee”), from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to pledge, redeem a pledge; guarantee, bail”), equivalent to en- + gage. Cognate with Old English anwedd (“pledge, security”), Old English weddian (“to engage, covenant, undertake”), German wetten (“to bet, wager”), Icelandic veðja (“to wager”). More at wed.

  1. derived from *wedʰ-✻ — “to pledge, redeem a pledge; guarantee, bail”
  2. derived from *wadją✻ — “pledge, guarantee”
  3. derived from *wadjōną✻ — “to pledge, secure”
  4. derived from *an-✻
  5. derived from *anwadjōn✻ — “to pledge”
  6. derived from engagier — “to pledge, engage”
  7. inherited from engagen

Definitions

  1. To interact socially.

    • Thus ſhall mankind his guardian care engage, / The promis'd father of the future age.

  2. To interact antagonistically.

    • 1698-1699, Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs a favourable opportunity of engaging the enemy

  3. To interact contractually.

    • For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged, and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks.
    • Rich Jews used to engage Christian music-teachers to teach their daughters German vocal and instrumental music.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To interact mechanically.

      • Whenever I engage the clutch, the car stalls out.
      • The Liner train wagon is a simple underframe on bogies, with coned location points that engage recesses in the container bases.

    2. To entangle.

The neighborhood

  • antonymdisengageantonym(s) of “to cause to mesh or interlock”

Derived

disengage, disengagement, engageable, engage in, engagement, engager, engagor, preengage, re-engage, unengage

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at engage. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01engage02interact03acts04clipping05clip06embrace07arms08escutcheon09charge

A definitional loop anchored at engage. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at engage

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA