Engine or motor
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jun 2013
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"Engine" is an old English term for any mechanical device (e.g. "Cotton 'gin"). With advent of steam power these were called "steam engines". and "engine" became common name for any device that produces power.
Motor is a device that moves something. It comes from latin and french e.g. "motive" motivation" When a "stream engine" is put on wheels it becomes a "Locomotive"
The two are interchageable. The lump in the front of your Corvette is both an "engine" and a "motor".
Motor is a device that moves something. It comes from latin and french e.g. "motive" motivation" When a "stream engine" is put on wheels it becomes a "Locomotive"
The two are interchageable. The lump in the front of your Corvette is both an "engine" and a "motor".
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jun 2013
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Rocket propulsion units are frequently referred to as "motors" even though they burn fuel.
While the arbitrary distinction between electricity and heat is a convenient rule of thumb, it is not entirely correct.
If I wind up the rubber band on a balsawood plane and let it fly, is that rubber band a "motor" or an "engine" or both?
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Motors are not exclusively electric. Air and hydraulic motors are two other common types.
Frankly, I think the term motor in its literal sense includes internal combustion engines in that they create motive force from a supplied energy source. A gasoline engine is a type of motor, although a motor is not always an engine.
In today's American English the expected intent and accepted result of language is to accurately convey the thought through the chosen words. So choosing to say my Corvette has a motor under the hood is correct, although not as definitive as calling it an engine.
It is simply semantics. Like the gentleman whose beautiful car was hit from the side: he called it t-boned even though it wasn't truly a broadside hit. He wasn't wrong in his description; he just wasn't as accurate as he could have been. It still sounds better than saying he got pork chopped.
I have obviously stayed up way past my bedtime.....
