"man engine" meaning in English

See man engine in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmæn‿ˌɛnd͡ʒɪn/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-man engine.wav Forms: man engines [plural], man-engine [alternative]
Etymology: From man (noun) + engine (noun), referring to an engine for raising or lowering people. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*mon-|*ǵenh₁-}}, {{dercat|en|ine-pro}}, {{langname|ine-pro}} Proto-Indo-European, {{word|en|ine|h₁én}}, {{compound|en|man|engine|notext=1|pos1=n|pos2=n|type=exocentric}} man (noun) + engine (noun) Head templates: {{en-noun}} man engine (plural man engines)
  1. (historical) A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages. Wikidata QID: Q16997263 Tags: historical Hypernyms: engine#Noun, machine#Noun, device#Noun Coordinate_terms: water engine Translations (mechanical lift for raising or lowering people): fahrkunst (Dutch), askelmallinen kaivosmiesten nostin (Finnish), Fahrkunst [feminine] (German), farkunst [masculine] (Norwegian Bokmål), фаркунст (farkunst) (Russian), elevador de varilla minero [masculine] (Spanish), фаркунст (farkunst) (Ukrainian)

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_text": "From man (noun) + engine (noun), referring to an engine for raising or lowering people.",
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          "ref": "1971, Susan Howatch, chapter 1, in Penmarric, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, part IV (Philip: 1914–1930: Truth and Falsehood), section 3, page 371:",
          "text": "The man-engine was like some gigantic prehistoric monster. I'll never forget the first time I saw the man-engine at the Levant. The captain took me to the edge of the shaft and explained to me how the mechanism worked. \"The wooden rod plunges, see—up, down, up, down. Up twelve feet, down twelve feet. There are steps all the way down at twelve-foot intervals on the rod, and corresponding platforms—sollars, we call them—on the sides of the shaft. The rod comes up, you step on, grab the handle—see?—and then the rod plunges down twelve feet and off you get onto the sollar. The rod swings up again, you get on the next step, drop twelve feet, step off onto the sollar, wait, step on, step off—and so on. It takes half an hour from top to bottom.\"",
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        "A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages."
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "raising",
          "raise#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "lowering",
          "lower#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "people",
          "person#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "considerable",
          "considerable#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "distances",
          "distance#Noun"
        ],
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        ],
        [
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          "device"
        ],
        [
          "miner",
          "miner"
        ],
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          "ascend",
          "ascend"
        ],
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          "descend",
          "descend#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "shaft",
          "shaft#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "consist",
          "consist"
        ],
        [
          "landings",
          "landing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "sollars",
          "sollar#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "equal",
          "equal#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "number",
          "number#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "shelves",
          "shelf#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "vertical",
          "vertical#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "rod",
          "rod#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "up",
          "up#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "down",
          "down#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "motion",
          "motion#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "successive",
          "successive"
        ],
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          "steps",
          "step#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "travelling",
          "travel#Verb"
        ],
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          "stages",
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        "(historical) A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages."
      ],
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          "lang": "Dutch",
          "lang_code": "nl",
          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
          "word": "fahrkunst"
        },
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          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
          "word": "askelmallinen kaivosmiesten nostin"
        },
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          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
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          ],
          "word": "Fahrkunst"
        },
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          "lang_code": "nb",
          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
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            "masculine"
          ],
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        },
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          "lang_code": "ru",
          "roman": "farkunst",
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          "word": "фаркунст"
        },
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          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
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            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "elevador de varilla minero"
        },
        {
          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "lang_code": "uk",
          "roman": "farkunst",
          "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
          "word": "фаркунст"
        }
      ],
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        "Q16997263"
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  "word": "man engine"
}
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          "text": "The man-engine was like some gigantic prehistoric monster. I'll never forget the first time I saw the man-engine at the Levant. The captain took me to the edge of the shaft and explained to me how the mechanism worked. \"The wooden rod plunges, see—up, down, up, down. Up twelve feet, down twelve feet. There are steps all the way down at twelve-foot intervals on the rod, and corresponding platforms—sollars, we call them—on the sides of the shaft. The rod comes up, you step on, grab the handle—see?—and then the rod plunges down twelve feet and off you get onto the sollar. The rod swings up again, you get on the next step, drop twelve feet, step off onto the sollar, wait, step on, step off—and so on. It takes half an hour from top to bottom.\"",
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        "A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages."
      ],
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          "raising",
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        ],
        [
          "lowering",
          "lower#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "people",
          "person#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "considerable",
          "considerable#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "distances",
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        [
          "mining",
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        [
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        ],
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        ],
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        ],
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          "equal#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "number",
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        ],
        [
          "shelves",
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        ],
        [
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        ],
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          "rod",
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        ],
        [
          "up",
          "up#Adjective"
        ],
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          "travel#Verb"
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          "stage#Noun"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages."
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "lang_code": "nl",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "word": "fahrkunst"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "word": "askelmallinen kaivosmiesten nostin"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Fahrkunst"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "lang_code": "nb",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "farkunst"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "lang_code": "ru",
      "roman": "farkunst",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "word": "фаркунст"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "elevador de varilla minero"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "lang_code": "uk",
      "roman": "farkunst",
      "sense": "mechanical lift for raising or lowering people",
      "word": "фаркунст"
    }
  ],
  "word": "man engine"
}

Download raw JSONL data for man engine meaning in English (6.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-11-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-11-20 using wiktextract (5887622 and c6a903f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.