Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word fire engine. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word fire engine, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say fire engine in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word fire engine you have here. The definition of the word fire engine will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition offire engine, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
(firefighting) A vehicle used by firefighters to pump water to fight a fire. Typically, a fire engine carries a supply of water and has the ability to connect to an external water supply.
2023 March 22, “Network News: Class 175s withdrawn for safety checks after fires”, in RAIL, number 979, page 13:
A fire aboard TfW 175007, working a Holyhead-Cardiff Central service on February 8, closed the A483 road while five fire engines from Wrexham, Deeside, and Cheshire attended the scene.
1844, William Pole, A Treatise on the Cornish Pumping Engine - Parts 1-3, page 110:
A plan somewhat similar to this was adopted by Smeaton in the boiler of his portable fire engine.
1866, Charles Frederick T. Young, Fires, Fire Engines, and Fire Brigades: With a History of Manual and Steam Fire Engines, page 93:
In the same year a very compact arrangement for a stationary fire engine was described by Mr. Wm. Baddeley, in which he proposed it should be worked like a capstan by means of handspikes, and it could be bolted down to a ship's deck, or fastened wherever wanted.
1868, John Bourne, A Treatise on the Steam-engine in Its Various Applications to Mines, Mills, Steam Navigation, Railways, and Agriculture, page 4:
This discovery gave a great impulse to mechanical ingenuity, and many schemes were contrived to make this new agent available as a motive power; but the first of these projects that appears to have been of any avail was the fire engine of Captain Tomas Savery, who produced a vacuum by condensing steam in close vessels, and then applied the vacuum so obtained to the elevation of water.
fire engine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 