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Engaged   /ɛngˈeɪdʒd/   Listen
verb
Engage  v. t.  (past & past part. engaged; pres. part. engaging)  
1.
To put under pledge; to pledge; to place under obligations to do or forbear doing something, as by a pledge, oath, or promise; to bind by contract or promise. "I to thee engaged a prince's word."
2.
To gain for service; to bring in as associate or aid; to enlist; as, to engage friends to aid in a cause; to engage men for service.
3.
To gain over; to win and attach; to attract and hold; to draw. "Good nature engages everybody to him."
4.
To employ the attention and efforts of; to occupy; to engross; to draw on. "Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage." "Taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation."
5.
To enter into contest with; to encounter; to bring to conflict. "A favorable opportunity of engaging the enemy."
6.
(Mach.) To come into gear with; as, the teeth of one cogwheel engage those of another, or one part of a clutch engages the other part.


Engage  v. i.  
1.
To promise or pledge one's self; to enter into an obligation; to become bound; to warrant. "How proper the remedy for the malady, I engage not."
2.
To embark in a business; to take a part; to employ or involve one's self; to devote attention and effort; to enlist; as, to engage in controversy.
3.
To enter into conflict; to join battle; as, the armies engaged in a general battle.
4.
(Mach.) To be in gear, as two cogwheels working together.


adjective
Engaged  adj.  
1.
Occupied; employed; busy.
2.
Pledged; promised; especially, having the affections pledged; promised in marriage; affianced; betrothed.
3.
Greatly interested; of awakened zeal; earnest.
4.
Involved; esp., involved in a hostile encounter; as, the engaged ships continued the fight.
Engaged column. (Arch.) Same as Attached column. See under Attach, v. t.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Engaged" Quotes from Famous Books



... her son with hundreds of other young men whom she saw around her, steadily, and no doubt happily, engaged in the process of transforming themselves from nice boys into useful citizens. Most of them had occupations, or were industriously engaged in qualifying for such; in their leisure moments they smoked reasonably-priced cigarettes, went ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... permitting the willing horse to do all the work. The lover can moon and rhapsodise at a safe distance, and it makes not a pennyworth of difference to him whether the mistress moons and rhapsodises also, or whether she is engaged in a flirtation through another telepathic line, or whether she has a score of different lines converging ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... necessary to observe, that the accounts we have of the inhabitants of Guinea, are chiefly given by persons engaged in the trade, who, from self-interested views, have described them in such colours as were least likely to excite compassion and respect, and endeavoured to reconcile so manifest a violation of the rights of mankind to the minds of the purchasers; yet they cannot but allow the Negroes to be possessed ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson


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