locomotiveadj.n.
/ˌləʊkəˈməʊtɪv/, U.S. /ˌloʊkəˈmoʊdɪv/ A. adj.
1.
a. Of or relating to the power of locomotion by an animate being (locomotion n. 1a); involving locomotion.Recorded earliest in locomotive faculty n., locomotive power n. at Compounds 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > progressive motion > [adjective]
progressive?c1450
progressional1570
locomotive1612
onwardly1674
locomotory1824
translational1867
1612 W. Sclater Christians Strength 12 Some kind of command over the locomotiue facultie.
1640 E. Reynolds Treat. Passions (1658) 1105 The will can hinder seeing, not immediately, but by the loco-motive power; by closing the eyes.
1666 G. Harvey Morbus Anglicus iv. 38 The manner whereby the faculty of the brain effects a locomotive action in any muscul.
1718 M. Prior Alma i, in Poems Several Occasions (new ed.) 330 If in the Night too oft He [sc. a child] kicks, Or shows his Loco-motive Tricks.
a1862 H. T. Buckle Hist. Civilisation Eng. (1869) III. v. 438 The locomotive..functions are more active in persons of a sanguine temperament.
1896 Amer. Practitioner & News 12 Dec. 444 Every time we perform any locomotive action, when awake and conscious, the motor nerves obey volition.
1935 Amer. Midland Naturalist 16 406 (heading) Locomotive habits of some trilobites.
1995 C. Nielsen Animal Evol. xv. 111 The foot lost most of the locomotive function and became narrow..or completely reduced.
b. Chiefly humorous. Of or relating to travel, or movement from one locality or country to another. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > [adjective]
itinerary1552
viatorya1631
locomotive1648
viatorial1816
1648 N. Bernard Still-borne Nativitie 10 His [sc. Christ's] Progresse in the World likewise appeares to be threefold. First Locomotive in respect of place of abode.
1681 R. Griffith A-la-mode Phlebotomy No Good Fashion 34 Though I had relation to many places..I..have evermore kept my self in a kind of locomotive posture.
1771 T. Gray Let. 26 Jan. in Corr. (1971) III. 1157 I rejoice you have met with Froissart: he is the Herodotus of a barbarous age:..his locomotive disposition,..his religious credulity, were much like those of the old Grecian.
1786 Observer No. 85. III. 236 The locomotive mania of an Englishman circulates his person, and of course his cash, into every quarter of the kingdom.
1806 J. Beresford Miseries Human Life I. v. 103 Considering them [sc. stage coaches] as the very climax and pinnacle of locomotive griefs.
1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus ii. vii. 60/2 We conjecture that he has known sickness; and, in spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the chronic sort.
1850 J. Struthers Life iv, in Poet. Wks. I. p. xlvii The young man..laid aside his locomotive dreaming, and became not only reconciled but wedded to the locality.
1874 A. Helps Social Pressure (1875) x. 143 In these locomotive days one is too apt to forget one's neighbours.
1904 W. Potts More Notes from Underledge iii. 24 This locomotive tendency upon the part of buildings is, I suppose, a Yankee peculiarity, and in keeping with the restless habit of the inhabitants.
1947 Jrnl. Soc. Archit. Historians 6 5/1 The Greek mode has for its leading characteristic a passionless repose not (in keeping) with..the spirit of this locomotive age.
c. Of or relating to powered locomotion by a vehicle.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > transport > transport or conveyance in a vehicle > [adjective] > relating to self-propelled transport
locomotive1825
1825 ‘J. Nicholson’ Operative Mechanic 671 Engines which have a locomotive principle [as opposed to stationary engines].
1851 Official Descriptive & Illustr. Catal. Great Exhib. II. 219 Steam-engine..adapted for stationary, locomotive, or marine purposes.
1907 J. F. Gairns Locomotive Compounding & Superheating xiv. 162 It appears very doubtful whether triple-expansion engines will ever be employed for locomotive purposes.
1982 T. Mo Sour Sweet xix. 122 The passengers in the cars..gliding smoothly along without a clue as to locomotive happenings down below.
2002 H. H. Schobert Energy & Society xix. 260 For all its fine qualities, the Watt engine was too big and too heavy to be adapted easily for locomotive purposes.
2.
a. Of an animal or other organism: capable of locomotion; able to move from one location to another by its own effort.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > by locomotion > [adjective]
locomotive1621
salient1646
1621 T. Granger Familiar Expos. Eccles. 99 A..solitary vagrant,..whose heart is fixed in the ground like the roote of a tree, neither a rationall, nor yet a brutall creature, but a plaine vegitable, or locomotiue plant.
1657 S. Purchas Theatre Flying-insects 49 They could not live and grow without food, they were not locomotive, and therefore could not go forth of their cells for it.
1709 T. Robinson Ess. Nat. Hist. Westmorland & Cumberland 33 These shell Fish which were not Loco-motive were left behind.
1794 W. Cowper Needless Alarm 64 The mind He scans of every locomotive kind; Birds of all feather, beasts of every name.
1815 W. Kirby & W. Spence Introd. Entomol. I. iii. 74 A caterpillar, then, may be regarded as a locomotive egg.
1879 G. Allen Colour-sense iii. 23 The young barnacles and balani are active, locomotive animals.
1901 W. Kidd Use-inheritance i. 24 They are..most marked in animals with very strong muscles, and those that are actively locomotive.
1973 Herpetologica 29 46/2 The attack latencies of each snake were obtained for seven high locomotive, seven low locomotive, three anesthetized, and three dead mice.
2002 Integrative & Compar. Biol. 42 1052/1 The geometry of most locomotive animals can be well defined by using a skeleton.
b. Chiefly humorous. Of a person: constantly travelling from one place to another; able to move from one place to another. Also figurative.
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society > travel > aspects of travel > travel from place to place > [adjective] > given to
locomotive1732
fly-about1799
1732 J. Whaley Trav. of a Shilling 66, in Poems 186 Or when my dwelling I wou'd change..My loco-motive Face was seen At Hampstead, or at Turnham-Green.
1810 W. Scott Let. 3 Oct. (1932) II. 382 You being the more loco-motive persons will I trust take another peep of Scotland.
1827 Sporting Mag. 20 262 I have not been much loco-motive of late.
1842 C. Dickens Amer. Notes II. vi. 145 He had all his life been restless and locomotive, with an irresistible desire for change.
1878 C. Macgregor in Monthly Packet 19 Hadrian..was one of the most locomotive Emperors that Rome ever had.
1896 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang IV. 220/2 Locomotive tailor..(tailors'), a tramping workman.
1965 D. P. O'Connell Internat. Law I. xv. 518 So long as the ice cap was considered only as an area upon which men could be locomotive and from which aircraft could operate [etc.].
1983 J. Verniere in M. R. Collings Films of Stephen King (2006) viii. 93 [David] Cronenberg is introspective, Stephen King is locomotive.
c. Of an object or device, esp. a vehicle: able to travel under its own power.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > powered vehicle > [adjective]
locomotive1800
automotive1830
automobile1876
auto-1895
horseless1895
unpulled1895
self-driving1905
motorized1922
society > occupation and work > equipment > machine > types of machine generally > [adjective] > other types
stout1702
multiplying1767
reciprocating1768
locomotive1800
centripetal1835
self-contained1839
uniplane1843
high-speed1844
powered1847
flexible1859
undergrounda1884
chip-proof1901
portable1913
batch1940
closed-loop1958
interactive1967
1800 Monthly Mag. Feb. 65/2 The remaining parts of their invention consist chiefly in the giving from a stationary power internal motion to a loco-motive machine.
1815 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 50 The proprietors had provided a powerful locomotive steam engine, for the purpose of drawing..coal-waggons.
1825 T. Creevey Let. 16 Mar. in H. Maxwell Creevey Papers (1903) II. iv. 87 This infernal nuisance—the loco-motive Monster,..coming thro' every man's grounds between Manchester and Liverpool.
1858 N. Hawthorne Fr. & Ital. Jrnls. I. 283 She looked like a locomotive mass of verdure and flowers.
1860 All Year Round 21 July 352 The locomotive post-offices, with their great nets—as if they had been dragging the country for bodies.
1934 Foreign Affairs 13 48 The introduction of a locomotive torpedo brought in an element of chance in battle, which men dislike.
1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 13 June 23 We can visualize a locomotive aircraft towing a train of six gliders in the very near future.
2007 Scots Mag. Mar. 295/1 Locomotive cranes were assembled to transport the granite blocks.
3. Chiefly Zoology. Esp. of an organ: having the power to produce locomotion, used in locomotion.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > by locomotion > [adjective] > having power to produce
locomotive1670
1670 G. Harvey Little Venus Unmask'd (ed. 2) 146 A pocky indisposition..occasioning..a great weakness in all the nervous and locomotive parts.
1796 E. Darwin Zoonomia II. 396 The whole sensorial power..was lodged in the extremities of the locomotive nerves.
1824 Lancet 3 July 17/2 These species have in their tail a sort of locomotive organ.
1914 Trans. Amer. Microsc. Soc. 33 69 Nematodes..differ from most other slender, wormlike forms in their lack of locomotive appendages.
1952 W. J. Miller Introd. Hist. Geol. (ed. 6) 535 Mollusks, like brachiopods, lack segmentation, but they are more highly organized with more or less distinctly developed body and locomotive organs.
2005 I. Elmadfa & E. Weichselbaum European Nutrition & Health Rep. 2004 202/2 Heavy manual labour and monotonous work tasks are still causing a great deal of back and neck complaints and disorders of the locomotive organs.
B. n.† 1. † 3. slang. In plural. A person's legs. Obsolete.† 4. A poor-quality kind of needle. Obsolete. rare.
a. = locomotive faculty n. at Compounds 2. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > progressive motion > [noun] > faculty or opportunity of
coursec1400
locomotive faculty1612
locomotive power1640
locomotive1649
locomotivity1752
mobility1777
locomobility1785
travel1816
locomotility1828
motiveness1828
1649 J. Bulwer Pathomyotomia i. vi. 35 Animall motion being stirred up in them [sc. sleepwalkers] by force of a stronger imagination, which are performed by the benefit of the motions of the Hand feete and the other organs serving to animall motion, commanded by the Locomotive prickt forward by the Appetite, stirred up by the Phansie.
?a1676 T. Bell Nehemiah Tirshatha (1692) 157 The inward power of Grace making outward Motives effectual, consists in a Cheerful, Ready Motion of the Locomotives.
b. An animal with powers of locomotion. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > by locomotion > [noun] > having power of
locomotive1872
1872 J. D. Dana Corals & Coral Islands i. 25 It is not a solitary case; for there are many others of Actiniæ attaching themselves to locomotives—to the claws or backs of crabs [etc.].
2.
a. A self-propelled vehicle, typically used for haulage; spec. a railway engine. Cf. locomotive engine n. at Compounds 2.When self-propelled vehicles appeared on roads (first as steam-powered traction engines, later as petrol-driven motor vehicles) they were classified for purposes of English law as locomotives. By the time that motor vehicles had become established, the long familiarity of railway engines meant that locomotive had come to be used predominantly for a railway locomotive.The wider use of the term was preserved in English legal contexts. In the Locomotive Act 1861 and in many subsequent acts locomotives were defined in law, typically as mechanically propelled vehicles not designed for carrying loads and having a specified minimum weight. Such definition was dropped from the Road Traffic Act 1991, which uses instead ‘mechanically propelled vehicle’ and ‘motor vehicle’.electric, passenger, road, steam locomotive, etc.: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > rail travel > rolling stock > [noun] > locomotive
locomotive engine1814
iron horse1825
locomotive1829
loco1833
railway engine1833
bullgine1848
bull1889
pig1931
locie1934
society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > powered vehicle > [noun]
locomotive engine1814
locomotive1829
power vehicle1901
train1904
unit1938
shunter1949
1829 J. Walker Rep. 7 Mar. to Directors Liverpool & Manch. Railway Co. (1831) 18 The quantity of work which the locomotives are capable of performing.
1837 H. W. Longfellow in S. Longfellow Life H. W. Longfellow (1891) I. 258 While steamboats and locomotives traverse field and flood with the speed of light.
1851 N. Hawthorne House of Seven Gables xvii. 196 A train of cars was just ready for a start; the locomotive was fretting and fuming, like a steed impatient for a headlong rush.
1859 All Year Round 19 Nov. 77 I met a huge lumbering Bonassus of a locomotive..staggering..about Agar-street, Strand. It was called, I believe, a Traction Engine.
1861 Act 24 & 25 Victoria c. 70 §8 Every Locomotive propelled by Steam or any other than Animal Power to be used on any Turnpike Road or Public Highway.
1894 Westm. Gaz. 29 Jan. 5/1 A pick-up goods train driver and fireman experienced a shock as if the locomotive had struck some hard substance lying on the rails.
1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love ix. 118 They could hear the small locomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the embankments.
1930 Road Traffic Act (20 & 21 Geo. V, c. 43) §3 Motor vehicles shall..be divided into the following classes:..(a) Heavy locomotives;..(b) Light locomotives..(c) Motor tractors..(d) Heavy motor cars..(e) Motor cars..(f) Motor cycles [etc.].
1959 E. K. Wenlock Kitchin's Road Transport Law (ed. 12) 26/1 No one under 21 is allowed to drive a locomotive, motor tractor or heavy motor car on a road.
1990 G. G. Liddy Monkey Handlers vii. 111 Two General Motors diesel-electric locomotives, coupled back-to-back, drew past slowly, pulling twenty-six freight cars.
2000 P. W. B. Semmens & A. J. Goldfinch How Steam Locomotives really Work ix. 342 Since the privatization of the railways, the locomotives..are owned by one of the Rolling-Stock Leasing Companies.
b. figurative. Chiefly with of or for. Something which provides power or impetus for a process, activity, etc.; a driving force.
ΚΠ
1851 Daily News 13 Nov. 5/3 Industry is a creating power; and being so, it is the most efficient locomotive of progress.
1920 M. Beer Hist. Brit. Socialism (1921) II. iv. xi. 208 The class war, far from being..an impediment to socialism, was its most efficient locomotive.
1982 Time 6 Dec. 31/1 Free trade, which has been a locomotive of prosperity since World War II, is in grave danger of derailment.
1999 Washington Times (Nexis) 1 Jan. a11 A market of 150 million [Russian] people, well-educated and hungry for consumer goods, could become an important locomotive for European growth in the next century.
2005 Y. Peng in L. A. Keister Entrepreneurship ii. 336 It [sc. rural industrialization] has been the locomotive of China's economic growth for the past two decades.
c. U.S. = locomotive cheer n. at Compounds 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > pleasure > joy, gladness, or delight > rejoicing or exultation > [adjective] > jubilating or rejoicing loudly > cheering or shouting hurrah
hurrahing1813
hurrah1835
rahing1904
locomotive1906
the mind > emotion > pleasure > joy, gladness, or delight > rejoicing or exultation > [noun] > jubilation or loud rejoicing > cheering or shouting hurrah > a cheer or shout
jolly1871
locomotive1906
1906 Michigan Alumnus Dec. 92/1 Cheers for Coach Yost and the Wolverine eleven were followed by a rousing locomotive for Pennsylvania.
1921 Princeton Alumni Weekly 21 Dec. 276/2 The following sang ‘Old Nassau’.., gave a locomotive for Princeton, and one for Ninety-nine: Salmon, Beef Harrison, Wee Harrison, [etc.].
2001 M. F. Bernstein Football: Ivy League Origins of Amer. Obsession i. 7 By the 1890s, the rocket cheer would develop into Princeton's famous ‘locomotive’,..still heard at football games today.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > external parts of body > limb > leg > [noun]
shanka900
legc1300
grainsa1400
limbc1400
foot?a1425
stumpa1500
pin?1515
pestlea1529
boughc1550
stamp1567
understander1583
pile1584
supporters1601
walker?1611
trestle1612
fetlock1645
pedestal1695
drumstick1770
gam1785
timber1807
tram1808–18
fork1812
prop1817
nethers1822
forkals1828
understanding1828
stick1830
nether person1835
locomotive1836
nether man1846
underpinning1848
bender1849
Scotch peg1857
Scotch1859
under-pinner1859
stem1860
Coryate's compasses1864
peg1891
wheel1927
shaft1935
1832 Royal Lady's Mag. Jan. 35/2 His ‘locomotives’; so he calls them—his wooden legs as any one else would call them.]
1836 Maine Monthly Mag. Dec. 267 Keeping a steady eye on you at the expense of a proper attention to my locomotives, I went stumbling on.
1841 Laird of Logan 24 The disher of dainties took to her locomotives—the infuriated man with the fork at her heels.
?a1857 W. T. Moncrieff Scamps of London (?1883) i. i. 4/2 I'll stop my locomotives directly. So now you may set yours a-going as soon as you like.
1870 Sheffield Times Mar. in J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang (1896) IV. 220/2 Having regained his freedom he again made good use of his locomotives.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile manufacture > manufacture textile fabric or that which consists of > sewing or ornamenting textile fabric > [noun] > sewing > equipment for > needle
needleeOE
Spanish pikec1639
steel bar1785
locomotive1880
1880 L. S. Floyer Plain Hints Examiners Needlework 95 There are a kind called ‘locomotives’, on which no maker will place his mark.
Compounds
C1. In sense B. 2a.
a. General attributive, as locomotive fuel, locomotive shed, etc.
ΚΠ
1830 Fourth Ann. Rep. Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road 54 Because the surfaces become slippery by use, thinks 1/ 12 should be assumed as the adhesion for locomotive wheels.
1842 Amer. Railroad Jrnl. 1 Nov. 272 For long lines on the continent, in India, etc., where wages were low, and coal or wood might be got very cheap for locomotive fuel,..the charge of carrying passengers per mile might be fairly taken at ½d. only.
1847 ‘Veritas Vincit’ Railway Locomotive Managem. xlv.189 Since Mr. Craven left, the locomotive shed has got into a deplorable condition.
1859 Jrnl. Soc. Arts 20 May 464/1 The relative prices and efficiency of proper locomotive-coal and coke.
1879 Rep. Paris Universal Exhib. 1878 374 Garret and Son..exhibit a locomotive fire-box with a corrugated crown plate serving in the place of stays and cross bars.
1923 Pop. Mech. Nov. 757/2 Fresh air from tanks of the brake system, supplied to locomotive crews..is regarded..as the best way to protect them from hot, choking smoke and damp, gas-laden air.
1949 J. Kerouac Jrnl. in Windblown World (2004) ii. 338 Valleys so all-inclusive that they floor three or four rail roads, and you can see locomotive smoke miles apart simultaneously puffing.
1986 Rail Enthusiast May 59/1 A 120 ft locomotive shed..will be completed.
2009 A. Mullett & L. Merritt Sumpter Valley Railway iv. 70 They were the last common carrier in the United States to use wood as their primary locomotive fuel.
b. Objective and instrumental, as locomotive builder, locomotive-hauled, etc.
ΚΠ
1838 Trans. Inst. Civil Engineers 2 177 The rage for velocity and heavier loads will..neutralize every effort of the locomotive builder to diminish the consumption of fuel.
1865 J. W. Draper Thoughts Future Civil Policy Amer. ii. 127 George Stevenson, once a locomotive stoker,..converted the locomotive of the last century, which at its utmost speed could travel seven miles an hour, into the locomotive of this, which can accomplish seventy.
1889 Documents Senate State of New York V. xxi. 88 Such an affair would probably have occurred at the elevated track curve if untested when locomotive-hauled trains afterward passed rapidly over it.
1917 T. R. Shaw Precision Grinding Machines ii. 28 Grinding machines with planetary spindles, specially adapted to the requirements of locomotive building.
1947 Locomotive Cycl. Amer. Pract. (ed. 13) 93/1 A locomotive operator must be advised of faulty operation of..power plants..under his control and alarm circuits are used for this purpose.
1970 Railway Mag. Oct. 546/1 The locomotive-hauled stock of British Railways has been drastically pruned in recent years.
2003 Supreme Court Econ. Rev. 10 35 Had the West ‘selected’..funicular instead of locomotive-pulled railroads, its economic success and political domination would have been little changed.
2009 B. Solomon Alco Locomotives i. 19 During Alco's early years, American locomotive manufacturing reached its all-time production zenith.
c.
locomotive depot n.
ΚΠ
1835 Hazard's Reg. Pennsylvania June 362/2 It [sc. the route of the railway] intersects the Pennsylvania rail way near to the Lancaster and Colombia Turnpike, and distant about 20 chains East of the ‘Locomotive Depot’.
1876 J. W. Barry Railway Appliances vi. 225 Ample water tanks..are required at all locomotive depôts.
1943 Winnipeg Free Press 29 July 1/5 Serious clashes between workers and Fascists are reported in the locomotive depot at Milanogreco.
2010 Wells Jrnl. (Nexis) 18 Mar. 35 A guided tour around the locomotive depot.
locomotive driver n.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > rail travel > railway worker > [noun] > train-staff > engine-driver
engine driver1809
engineer1816
engineman1835
locomotive engineer1840
runner1848
locomotive driver1852
locomotive runner1860
locoman1894
hogger1904
hoghead1905
1852 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 15 15/2 We remark with just pride, such a man was a millwright,..another a mason..one an engine tender, here a locomotive driver, there a plumber.
1896 N. Amer. Rev. May 543 The locomotive driver is undoubtedly at the head of the artisan classes, but it is not always requisite that he shall have a trade.
1970 Auk 87 638 His boyhood ambition had not stopped at the job of locomotive-driver, the goal of so many youths of his generation.
1992 R. Harris Fatherland iv. 260 The man who stepped forward wore the dark blue tunic and soft cap of a locomotive driver.
locomotive factory n.
ΚΠ
1836 N.-Y. Spectator 20 Oct. 4/1 The house..is on the river front, a few rods north of the Locomotive Factory.
1862 D. A. Randall Handwriting of God in Egypt, Sinai, & Holy Land I. vii. 105 You will see a blacksmith..working away with as much complacence and contentment as though he were lord of a locomotive factory.
1943 Foreign Affairs Jan. 232 The railroad shops and locomotive factories throughout Europe have received huge orders.
2001 Independent (Nexis) 4 Mar. 12 The major retail novelty is the new La Maquinista shopping centre—a huge retail complex set up in a renovated locomotive factory.
locomotive superintendent n.
ΚΠ
1841 C. A. Saunders Let. 29 June in Rep. Officers Railway Dept. App. 148 in Parl. Papers (1842) XLI. 13 You may rely upon the personal care and superintendence of the engineer and locomotive superintendent as well as of myself.
1892 Railways & Railway Men i. 13 The locomotive superintendent keeps a record of the performances of every engine.
1921 R. M. Dane Sport in Asia & Afr. xi. 233 The Locomotive Superintendent of the Uganda Railway..told me an extraordinary leopard story.
2004 Leicester Mercury (Nexis) 24 Nov. 1 GCR locomotive superintendent Tom Tighe told the Leicester Mercury previously: ‘We work hard to be good neighbours, but smoke and noise are part of everyday steam railway life.’
locomotive whistle n.
ΚΠ
1845 Q. Rev. June 162 It is an awful damper..enough to add a yet more horrific shriek to the infernal gamut of the locomotive whistle.
1892 J. A. Zahm Sound & Music vi. 218 The locomotive whistle is but a modified form of the organ-pipe.
1977 H. O'Hagan School-marm Tree viii. 108 Like many engineers, Andy played a few special trills on the locomotive whistle at the mile board to acquaint his wife with his coming.
2011 Denver Post (Nexis) 3 Aug. d1 It's nice to have a good restaurant within earshot of a locomotive whistle.
locomotive works n.
ΚΠ
1845 Amer. Railroad Jrnl. 9 Jan. 142/2 (advt.) Norris' Locomotive Works, Bush Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1889 G. Findlay Working & Managem. Eng. Railway vii. 118 Crewe, which previous to the establishment of the locomotive works was inhabited only by a few farmers and cottagers, has now developed into a flourishing town.
1966 G. F. Allen Brit. Rail after Beeching xii. 357 Of the Southern Region's locomotive works, Brighton had already been shut down and Ashford (Kent) had been slated for closure.
2008 M. Anson in J. Melling & A. Booth Managing Mod. Workplace iii. 50 Some indication of the buoyancy of the local labour market [in Swindon] is gained from the fact that 2,800 jobs were shed at the locomotive works alone between 1947 and 1966 without undue effect.
locomotive workshop n.
ΚΠ
1841 Morning Post 18 Mar. 3/5 The value of the machinery in the locomotive workshops is stated to be at least 8,000l.
1898 C. H. Grinling Hist. Great Northern Railway, 1845–95 xvii. 279 The Great Northern directors were obliged, for fear of a strike, to introduce from the beginning of the year a nine hours' day in their locomotive workshops.
1931 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 28 Mar. 12/6 Other questions will be directed by the electives with a view to ascertaining whether some of the articles imported for use in the Railway could not be made in the locomotive workshop.
2011 Independent Traveller (Nexis) 26 Nov. (Travel section) 8 The trip on Europe's last remaining steam-hauled main line..—where you can roam around the locomotive workshops and turntables.
C2.
locomotive boiler n. a form of boiler used for railway locomotives, with a double-walled firebox, a horizontal barrel and fire tubes, and a smokebox with chimney; cf. locomotive-type adj. and n.
ΚΠ
1831 Rep. Select Comm. Steam Carriages 41 in Parl. Papers (H.C. 324) VIII. 203 The risk of explosion in Mr. Hancock's boiler is certainly very much less than in the locomotive boilers.
1891 W. S. Hutton Steam-boiler Constr. vi. 376 The life of a locomotive-boiler is, on average, ten years.
1943 Sun (Baltimore) 8 Sept. 3/2 The..luxury train..slewed crazily over four tracks when its locomotive boiler blew up.
2009 Portland (Maine) Press Herald (Nexis) 7 Oct. c2 We are licensed and certified to completely reconstruct locomotive boilers for ourselves and others, which is fairly unusual for a museum.
locomotive cab n. the compartment in a railway locomotive occupied by the operating crew.
ΚΠ
1860 Daily South Carolinian (Columbia, S. Carolina) 16 Mar. 3/6 We have it [sc. sheet roofing] in use on Locomotive Cabs, Steamboat Decks, &c., where fire is constantly dropping upon it.
1939 L. Jacobs Rise of Amer. Film (1941) iii. 44 This thrilling scene shows the tender and interior of the locomotive cab, while the train is running forty miles an hour.
2009 J. Fleming Cold Blood lv. 265 There's not much room down there on the floor of a locomotive cab.
locomotive car n. U.S. a railway vehicle combining an engine and a carriage or truck.
ΚΠ
1840 H. Pinkus Prospectus New Agrarian Syst. 45 The train is attached to the locomotive car.
1853 Amer. Law. Reg. 1 397 A stockbroker in a Railroad Corporation, was on the road of the latter..in a small locomotive car used for the convenience of the officers of the Company.
1909 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 34 110 Locomotive car builders and other manufacturers ceased placing orders for machine tools.
2005 J. Espiritu Message iv. 450 Yussuf and his men then simply walked to the next car..blasting their way through into the locomotive car, and took control of the train from the two terrified engineers.
locomotive cheer n. U.S. (chiefly at Princeton University) a prolonged cheer that increases in volume; shortened to locomotive (see sense B. 2c).
ΚΠ
1897 L. R. Williams Let. 13 Dec. in Triennial Rec. Class of 1895 of Princeton Univ. (1898) 177 Since he couldn't get to Princeton, he had spent the day reading the Class Record and giving locomotive cheers.
1921 D. Stone Yank Brown, Halfback ix. 113 They greeted the squad uproariously, thundering the ‘locomotive’ cheer across the hostile gridiron.
1944 Life 24 Apr. 123/2 Then there was a raucous group in the gallery which, during dull speeches, would get up and give a F-R-A-N-K S-I-N-A-T-R-A locomotive cheer.
2009 M. F. Bernstein Princeton Football 8 Princeton football..is also a pregame tailgate party in an eating club parking lot, a locomotive cheer and a rousing chorus of ‘Going Back to Nassau Hall’.
locomotive engine n. now historical and archaic = sense B. 2.
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society > travel > rail travel > rolling stock > [noun] > locomotive
locomotive engine1814
iron horse1825
locomotive1829
loco1833
railway engine1833
bullgine1848
bull1889
pig1931
locie1934
society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > powered vehicle > [noun]
locomotive engine1814
locomotive1829
power vehicle1901
train1904
unit1938
shunter1949
1814 Repertory Arts, Manuf., & Agric. 24 141 It is already known to the public, that self-acting locomotive engines have been used for the purposes of drawing carriages after them.
1823 Private Act (Stockton & Darlington) 4 Geo. IV c. 33 §8 [To] make and erect such and so many loco-motive or moveable Engines as the said Company..shall from Time to Time think proper..for the Conveyance of Passengers.
1861 Act 24 & 25 Victoria c. 70 §13 Nothing in this Act contained shall authorize any Person to use upon a Highway a Locomotive Engine which shall..cause a..Nuisance.
1901 Scotsman 7 Mar. 6/1 To force railway companies to attach spark guards to locomotive engines.
1942 Amer. Jrnl. Nursing 42 253/1 Individuals who show..disturbances of the central nervous system should not be permitted to drive any type of self-propelled..vehicles, such as..locomotive engines.
2005 J. Mortimer Zerah Colburn iv. 45 Within a few months he fully understood the theory and practice of the locomotive engine.
locomotive engineer n. (a) North American a train driver. (b) an engineer who builds and maintains locomotives; (in plural also) an engineering company that builds locomotives.
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society > travel > rail travel > railway worker > [noun] > train-staff > engine-driver
engine driver1809
engineer1816
engineman1835
locomotive engineer1840
runner1848
locomotive driver1852
locomotive runner1860
locoman1894
hogger1904
hoghead1905
1840 U.S. Commerc. & Statist. Reg. May 332/1 (table) For services of locomotive engineers and firemen, [$]3089 55.
1843 Merchants' Mag. Nov. 480 Daniel Mathews, chief locomotive-engineer, receives a salary of $1,200 per annum.
1852 S. Norris (title) Norris's hand-book for locomotive engineers and machinists: comprising the proportions and calculations for constructing locomotives, manner of setting valves, tables of squares, cubes, areas, &c. &c.
1889 G. Findlay Working & Managem. Eng. Railway p. v I must not omit to acknowledge my obligations to the Chief Locomotive Engineer.
1937 Life 29 Nov. 73/3 (caption) Iran's lion is plated on this fine new locomotive for the Iran railroad built by the Swedish locomotive engineers Nydquist and Holm.
1976 J. Lukasiewicz Railway Game 79 The ATC provides the locomotive engineer with audible and visual information on track conditions.
2009 R. A. McDavid & S. Echaore-McDavid Career Opportunities in Transportation 120/1 Today, Locomotive Engineers run mostly diesel-electric locomotives.
locomotive engineering n. (a) the branch of engineering concerned with the construction and modification of locomotives; (b) North American the occupation or practice of a train driver.
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1842 Surveyor, Engineer, & Architect Feb. 2/2 No title..can ever equal the fame and the imperishable renown which railway and locomotive engineering are conferring upon his name.
1871 Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Jrnl. Jan. 11/1 There is some business more dangerous and hazardous than others... Among such professions, I class locomotive engineering.
1907 J. F. Gairns Locomotive Compounding & Superheating xv. 164 Superheating for locomotives is quite a recent development of locomotive engineering.
1999 Calgary (Alberta) Herald (Nexis) 18 Aug. s7 The centre will offer training in locomotive engineering and conducting.
2006 D. R. Meyer Networked Machinists v. 147 As leaders in locomotive engineering, British builders captured about one-quarter of the American market through the 1830s.
locomotive faculty n. (also †faculty locomotive) [compare post-classical Latin locomotiva facultas (1588 or earlier), French faculté locomotive (1583 in Middle French)] now historical an inherent ability to move from one position or place to another, as by an act of will.
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the world > movement > progressive motion > [noun] > faculty or opportunity of
coursec1400
locomotive faculty1612
locomotive power1640
locomotive1649
locomotivity1752
mobility1777
locomobility1785
travel1816
locomotility1828
motiveness1828
1612Locomotiue facultie [see sense A. 1a].
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica iv. vii. 196 Complaints of gravity in animated and living bodies, where the nerves subside, and the faculty locomotive seems abolished. View more context for this quotation
1823 ‘G. Smith’ Not Paul, but Jesus 197 Except this exercise of the loco-motive faculty, nothing is there to distinguish him from the common stock of still-life.
2000 S. C. Inati Probl. Evil iv. 106 The function of the locomotive faculty is to move and to act [according to Ibn Sînâ].
locomotive fireman n. a person who feeds and tends the furnace of a steam engine.
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1850 Lancaster Gaz. 16 Feb. 8/1 Mr. William Wilkinson, locomotive fireman, [was married] to Miss Ann Lawthwaite, both of Kendal.
1914 E. C. Robbins Railway Conductors i. 10 The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen was formed in 1873.
1986 Guardian (Nexis) 2 May A locomotive fireman who chalked on the boiler of his steam engine ‘Please marry me’ and captured his wife, Doreen.
2005 L. H. Kaufman Leaders Count v. 123 Dieselization..eliminated the work of the locomotive fireman, but union work rules continued to require that every train have a fireman in the cab.
locomotive power n. [compare post-classical Latin locomotiva potentia (1538 or earlier)] (a) power used or available for the purpose of locomotion; an instance of this; (b) power provided by railway locomotives.
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the world > movement > progressive motion > [noun] > faculty or opportunity of
coursec1400
locomotive faculty1612
locomotive power1640
locomotive1649
locomotivity1752
mobility1777
locomobility1785
travel1816
locomotility1828
motiveness1828
1640Loco-motive power [see sense A. 1a].
1760 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy I. ii. 5 The Homunculus is..endowed with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us.
1817 S. T. Coleridge Biographia Literaria I. iii. 62 As if the passive page of a book..instantly assumed at once loco-motive power.
1825 J. Parkes Statement of Claim to Act of Parl. 42 The current charges for the maintenance of the Rail-road and Loco-motive Power..will enable the Company to carry Goods at a rate less by one-third.
1869 Bradshaw's Railway Man. 21 184 The company is authorized to use locomotive power on the tramways at Holyhead harbour.
1909 Econ. Jrnl. 19 26 Such are the costs directly dependent on the use of locomotive power.
1952 W. J. Miller Introd. Hist. Geol. (ed. 6) 534 Absence of distinct head and foot, and lack of locomotive power, distinguish them from the mollusks.
2003 Southern Econ. Jrnl. 70 238 Higher train speeds are likely to increase costs because of the..higher level of locomotive power required to operate faster trains.
locomotive rhythm n. (a) Physiology (in the terminology of Alexander Bain) the regular combination of movements which allow progressive motion to take place (now rare); (b) a driving, regular rhythm that mimics or is suggestive of the sound of a moving railway locomotive.
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1855 A. Bain Senses & Intellect i. iv. 262 The locomotive rhythm involves all the arrangements that I regard as primitive in the class of combined movements of succession, apart from those organic movements of heart, lungs, and intestines above alluded to.
1904 R. G. Boone Sci. of Educ. 156 In walking there is what has been called locomotive rhythm, that requires and accompanies the co-ordinating of many organs and the alternating of the lower limbs in movement.
1946 R. Prokofieva tr. I. V. Nestyev Sergei Prokofiev i. iv. 69 The line runs from the rigid, locomotive rhythms of the Toccata, Op. 11, to the harsh images expressive of modern city life in Le Pas d'acier and the Toccata of the Fifth Concerto.
2010 W. Friedwald Biogr. Guide Great Jazz & Pop Singers 54/1 A rocking, steady locomotive rhythm that suggests the Daybreak Express plowing down the Yazoo delta where the Southern meets the Dog.
locomotive runner n. U.S. (now historical) a train driver, a locomotive engineer; also in extended use.
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society > travel > rail travel > railway worker > [noun] > train-staff > engine-driver
engine driver1809
engineer1816
engineman1835
locomotive engineer1840
runner1848
locomotive driver1852
locomotive runner1860
locoman1894
hogger1904
hoghead1905
1860 Fort Atkinson (Wisconsin) Standard 7 Apr. 2/5 The Editor..is a locomotive runner on the track of public notoriety; his lever is his pen, his boiler is filled with ink.
1888 Railroad & Engin. Jrnl. Nov. 515/1 They each have a valve..operated by a lever connected to the cab by a rod so that the locomotive runner can open..the valve at pleasure.
1977 D. A. Brown Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow viii. 171 After the growth in numbers of Iron Horses, experienced firemen were drafted as locomotive drivers or locomotive runners.
locomotive-type adj. and n. (a) adj. designating a boiler of a type typically used for railway locomotives, with a horizontal barrel and fire tubes; (b) n. a boiler of this type; cf. loco-type n. and adj. at loco n.1 Compounds 2.
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1870 Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engin. Mag. June 586/2 Portable, vertical, and locomotive type.
1897 Jrnl. Mental Sci. 43 771/5 The Locomotive types are used where rapid steam power and high pressure are required.
1937 G. Sykes Colorado Delta ii. 25 Her boiler was a 20 horsepower locomotive type.
1997 T. B. Sauselein Boiler Operator's Exam Prepar. Guide ii. 19 On older boilers, such as locomotive types, stay bolts are an important part of the pressure vessel.
2011 Southland Times (Nexis) 7 June 1 Engines are powered by two locomotive-type boilers.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.n.1612