engineering

Verb

engineer (third-person singular simple present engineers, present participle engineering, simple past and past participle engineered)

1. (transitive) To employ one's abilities and knowledge as an engineer to design, construct, and/or maintain (something, such as a machine or a structure), usually for industrial or public use.
2. (specifically, transitive) To use genetic engineering to alter or construct (a DNA sequence), or to alter (an organism).
   • In an interesting animal study, scientists engineered mice with a specific gene defect that caused memory and learning problems.2018, Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain, →ISBN, page 41
3. (transitive) To plan or achieve (a goal) by contrivance or guile; to finagle, to wangle.
4. (intransitive) To formulate plots or schemes; to plot, to scheme.

   Synonyms:

   machinate

5. (intransitive, rare) To work as an engineer.
   • What of the grand tools with which we engineer, like kobolds and enchanters,—tunnelling Alps, canalling the American Isthmus, piercing the Arabian desert?1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Works and Days”, in Society and Solitude. Twelve Chapters, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 144

See all 15 meanings of engineer