Word.ws English Dictionary

switch engines

switch engines is the plural of switch engine.

Meaning of switch engine

Noun

switch engine (plural switch engines)

  1. A switcher or shunter: a railroad locomotive used for shunting.
  2. A particular methuselah in Conway's Game of Life that temporarily exhibits glide reflection symmetry while leaving debris behind, allowing for the construction of spaceships, puffers, and rakes.
    • 2. Is it possible to make the switch engine leave debris other than the normal 8 blocks/288 generations?1990 May 17, David Moews, “Life questions”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

Questions about switch engines

What is switch engines the plural of?
Switch engines is the plural of switch engine.

Words near switch engines in the dictionary

  1. switch cane
  2. switch canes
  3. switch codes
  4. switch dealing
  5. switch engine
  6. switch engines
  7. switch gear
  8. switch gears
  9. switch grass
  10. switch grasses
  11. switch hit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: switch engines (page history and authors); switch engine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “switch engines.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/switch_engines. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.