internal combustionn.
/ɪnˌtəːnl kəmˈbʌstʃ(ə)n/, U.S. /ᵻnˌtərnəl kəmˈbəstʃ(ə)n/ 1. Combustion (in early use esp. spontaneous combustion) occurring or supposed to occur within something; spec. the metabolic process by which heat is generated in the animal body.
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1774 W. Hutchinson Excursion to Lakes 71 That confusion and horrid uproar, which the falling of these stupendous rocks would occasion, if by some internal combustion they were rent to pieces, and hurled into the Lake.
1791 E. Darwin Addit. Notes 18 in Bot. Garden (new ed.) It is probable phosphoric acid is produced by the combination of vital air with some part of the blood, and that light is given out through their [sc. glow-worms'] transparent bodies by this slow internal combustion.
1852 E. Jarvis Pract. Physiol. (new ed.) 182 If the forty inches [of air] which we inhale contains less than twenty per cent. of oxygen, then the internal combustion is impeded, heat is sparingly evolved.
1905 Med. Times 33 33/2 Intense cold causes shivering and muscular tremor, both causing internal combustion and more internal heat.
1922 Nat. Hist. 22 16/2 Other groups of deep-sea shrimps or prawns..produce their blue or violet light by internal combustion.
1995 D. B. Martin Corinthian Body viii. 214 [For early medical writers] the compulsion to have sex sprang from the internal combustion accompanying the burning of desire.
2. Combustion of petrol, oil, or other fuel within a closed space inside an engine, with the hot gases produced driving a piston or doing other work inside that space; frequently attributive, esp. in internal combustion engine. Also figurative. Cf. external combustion n. at external adj. and n. Additions.
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1853 Minutes Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers 12 337 The air, or mixed air and steam engines, with the internal combustion of the fuel, may be made to imitate animal muscular power.
1884 H. C. F. Jenkin in Heat in Mech. Applic. (Inst. Civil Engin.) (1885) 105 The internal combustion engine..is really the fore-runner of the gas-engine.
1908 Westm. Gaz. 29 Oct. 4/1 Even at this year's show the centre of interest will be an internal-combustion motor.
1932 W. Lewis Filibusters in Barbary i. iii. 15 Dressed as a lady-motorist of the earliest days of the internal-combustion engine.
1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride 113/2 What Kipling was to the aggressive British imperialists, these ads are to our domestic economy. They act as a sort of firing spark in the internal combustion engine.
1964 Engineering 2 Oct. 438/2 A method of high energy operation which uses the internal combustion process for its power source.
2010 Wall St. Jrnl. 23 Oct. d4/3 If and when the battery is depleted, the Volt can continue on its way using the internal-combustion engine.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1774