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My uncle worked at Estes, the hobby rocket company, for many years. He was always a stickler about calling the black powder propellant sources "motors" and indeed older motors are labeled such. [1] He insisted they were not engines as they had no moving parts and would always correct me when I said "rocket engine." He eventually explained that rocket engines exist, but they are engines with valves and pumps and use liquid fuel (e.g. the Saturn V's F-1 engines), while solid rockets (e.g. Estes' products, or the shuttle's SRBs) are simply motors since they merely consist of burning propellant and a nozzle. Indeed the wiki pages for the F-1 and the SRB are consistent in calling the former engine and the latter motor.

However, at some point since he retired, Estes transitioned to calling them Engine/Motors [2], and now, the primary labelling Estes uses calls them Engines, though Engine/Motor is still printed on the cardboard casing itself. [3]

Interestingly, the Spanish, French and German on the motors still use motor, as Motor, Moteur-Fusee and Raketenmotor, respectively.

Because of that upbringing, I have since treated the words to mean that a motor is something that provides force of motion (thrust or rotation) - it may or may not also be an engine, as in the rocketry examples. An engine is a contraption with moving/interacting parts that uses energy to accomplish some goal - that goal may (F-1, car engine) or may not (cotton gin, search engine) be the propulsion of the contraption itself and what it's attached to.

That said, as a child I made no such distinction, hence the frequent corrections. I am happy to recognize that in common vernacular they are usually synonymous, though it would still sound strange, I think, to call something a 'search motor' (edit: however, see comment by yau8edq12i !) or a 'graphics motor' just as it would be jarring to encounter 'servoengine'.

1: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi...

2: https://www.apogeerockets.com/bmz_cache/f/f8ecac9604d017a5c7...

3: https://estesrockets.com/products/b6-4-engines

A friend who studied engineering at MIT made a similar distinction, and it's where I expected the article to go, being hosted there.

The notion was that the development of engines, as opposed to simpler motors and mechanical systems, had required a net set of skills that led to a recognizably different discipline. More systematic, more concerned with dynamics and feedbacks, cross-disciplinary to materials and machining techniques, more data driven, more advanced mathematic and analytic techniques in support of these. The sense was simpler mechanical systems were more linear and engines were highly non-linear, and required a different mindset to approach.

I like the distinction and appreciate the different terms.

Electric motors have moving parts and at least where I am nobody would call one an electric engine.

Automobiles generally have engines, but motor isn't uncommon for (internal combustion) engines there either. Motor car is something I remember my grandfather saying although I guess that's not really used anymore, but motorbike certainly is. So is motorsports. "Blown motor" is a pretty common phrase for an IC engine that has stopped working due to damage.

Engine has some exclusive cases where motor does not substitute. Jet engine and steam engine come to mind.

>Electric motors have moving parts and at least where I am nobody would call one an electric engine.

Second this. In photography, the little electric drive motors inside camera lenses are never called engines, though they definitely do have small moving parts.

Depends on what you consider part of the motor. Linear electric motors directly apply force to something else like a train car without themselves having moving parts.

Yes, but in the marine realm they are consistently called outboard motors and not outboard engines.

French uses "Moteur" because it doesn't have a word for "engine". The closest is "engin", but that means "contraption" and generally applies to the entire class of "large mechanical devices that move".

Both Motor and Engine are generally translated into french as "Moteur"

Same in all latin languages I think. One word for both motor and engine. In spite of having a word for 'engineer'.

Same in Dutch (a Germanic language).

Then again, we colloquially call both a motorcycle and its engine “motor”.

The word in Germanic that is used closest to "engine" would be maschine/maskin/ ... and so on.

It is called motor with respect to its effect, and machine with respect to how it works. A machine is called motor to denote it is connected to wheels or propellers, but service or repairs are technically performed on the machine.

This distinction can sound a little old-fashioned now.

Interesting, I was surprised to learn this fact from you!

"engineer" in French is ingénieure (feminine) and ingénieur (masculine).

And putting "ingen" into google translate returns.. engineer.

Edit: @euroderf: Lol

So how do these relate to ingénue ?

As for German, there isn't really an equivalent for engine, even combustion engines are called (Verbrennungs)Motor.

Rocket and jet engines are sometimes called Raketentriebwerk and Turbinentriebwerk respectively.

But this has the meaning of something providing propulsion.

A steam engine is called Dampfmaschine (steam machine), though more recent designs are called Dampfmotor (steam motor) instead.

It also has to do with the "heat engine," and particularly the Stirling engine, and the related carnot cycle. An engine transforms heat to extract work.

A rocket motor has the expansion part of a heat engine in an obvious way. An electric motor produces motion, but isn't an engine.

Out of curiosity, what do you think your uncle would have said that the magazine Motor Trend (first published 1949 according to wikipedia) is about, or what types of vehicles use a motorway, or what the going concern of the Ford Motor Company is?

Or was it more one-directional, such that engines can be called motors but motors should not be called engines?

So, the disciplines are called engineering and motoring, and the practitioners are called engineers and motorers? ;)

This was fascinating to me.

Also, I was apparently using my own personal definition of "engine" that was somewhat different than the other modern usage.

To me, a "motor" is something that translates energy into motion. An "engine" is something that translates energy into work. So a motor is a kind of engine, and uses of "engine" in knowledge work is an analogy.

Your engine definition is interesting as we have phrases like database engine and other software based uses of the word.

I think, once you get past mechanics, the definitions are going to diverge pretty quickly.

But you don't say "jet motor". I think it's probably like pork vs pig. They are technically the same but the language has come to use one vs the other in a different context (food vs animal).

I think that's just a matter of jargon. As an aircraft mechanic, I heard and spoke the phrase "Pull the motor on aircraft..." Many times. We used engine and motor interchangebly on an engine thrust powered aircraft.

My personal definition of "engine" had to have something combustible inside it that caused motion. So fossil fueled cars and buses and rockets had steam engines and internal combustion engines and rocket engines, but electric cars like tesla have motors!

Steam isn't combustible? What about the Stirling engine, powered by heat gradient and air?

Steam engines and Stirling engines are both examples of "External Combustion Engines", whereas piston engines and gas turbines are examples of "Internal Combustion Engines" (ICE).

What would count as "work" under that definition (that's not motion)?

Yeah, the distinction is a bit fuzzy. I can come up with some examples, such as certain kinds of pumps that don't involve moving parts.

But when I think of things I call "motors" and "engines", I admit the distinction appears arbitrary (but clear nonetheless in my mind). For instance, if there's a device that moves things as a component of a larger machine, I'd call that device a "motor", but am likely to call the larger machine an "engine". And to go back to the pump, I'd call the device that moves to push the liquid a "motor", not an "engine", for no good reason.

As with much of English, this "rule" has enough exceptions as to question whether or not it should be called a "rule".

I put "rule" is scare quotes because what I was originally describing is decidedly not a rule at all, just a description of how I tend to use those words.

That actually fits well with the origin of the words (as described in the article). And it makes sense because engine is sometimes used metaphorically (?) (as you note), while motor is not.

You used the word "translates" instead of "transforms" or "transfers". Is there a particular reason for that?

No, not really. Just my particular linguistic oddity. "Transform" is probably a better term.

Cool, thanks. Figured it was just a preference as I hadn't really heard that before. Works though!

Aren't there large areas of the anglophone world where "motor" = electric motor and "engine" = something that burns fuel to turn?

In my part of the US, anyway, gas car engines are usually called "engines", but calling them "motors" is not that unusual and wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

There are a few auto repair shops around here that even call themselves "motorworks".

Alongside motorworks there are countless others: motorcycle, motorboat, motorway, motorhome, motel (hotel that you motor to), motor oil, motor mounts, etc. etc.

> motel (hotel that you motor to)

When I was a child, I remember seeing some such accommodations calling themselves "motor hotels" or "motor lodges".

"Motor inn" is still quite common.

And Car used to be called Motor Car for as long as I remember in my country.

And then we have "motorhead", which, well, I'll let the reader work out what it means if unclear. ;)

In a similar vein, when reading this comments I can't help but think of the use of "motor" as a verb, as in "you're motoring, what's your price for flight?"

Obviously named accordingly since vehicles like this all contain an engine ;)

It's common to find references to "rocket motors", so it isn't always electric. Wikipedia now redirects "rocket motors" to "rocket engines", but "motor" is still used throughout those pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rocket_motor&redi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solid_rocket_moto...

From what I've seen the "rocket motor" motor was mostly due to the packaging on the hobby rockets. Another example of how a single company can make a huge impact not only on society, but language itself.

Yes, this was absolutely always my colloquial understanding.

I realize that there are traditional terms like a "motor car" that has an engine.

But my ICE car has an engine, not a motor, because it burns fuel.

While my coffee grinder has a motor, not an engine, because it's electric.

I'm curious if there's anywhere in the anglophone world where this is not the common distinction.

(Even if there might be technical fields that have their own different technical definitions.)

for comparison, engine translates to motor in spanish, so both words are the same.

engineer is translated as ingeniero, which originates from ingenious and not engine.

Engine itself comes from ingenium: https://www.etymonline.com/word/engine

Yes, this is true in the UK (at least amongst people who know the difference between an electric motor and an ICE)

Ullo John. Gotta new motor? https://youtu.be/7MqMZ6XqMfc?si=wwIVzKeDE7bdX2U2

Yes, a "motor" can also mean "car", but it does not mean "internal combustion engine".

Was the article written by an llm difference engine? In that it failed at discussing the differences of the two and really just regurgitated the etymologies and ancient definitions of the two terms with no insight about modern usages. My quick difference as a matter of opinion only is that engine is related to carnot some heat cycle creates enables work that can be turned into locomotion. Motor is a superset, and is some system, process or machine that turns potential energy into kinetic energy. That is my opinion, of which i am open to, in fact very interested in reading others. Unfortunately this was not that article, instead you get a brief history lessons on words, with the thesis that some word's meanings change over time (allow me to pick my jaw off the floor) and don't worry about delineating the two terms because they pretty much mean the same thing. Not what i was expecting from mit engineering.

It's from 2013 so I guess this essay-ish style of writing is one of the sources present day LLMs have been trained on.

One thing that jumped out at me is that the word engine, in its historic understanding, would apply quite well to the Rube Goldberg drawings of overly complex contraptions to do various tasks... which means it would also apply to most enterprise architectures which are similarly overly complex.

Yeah, it doesn't look like the alternative definition "instrument of torture, an apparatus for catching game, a net, trap, or decoy" has lost utility just yet.

In modern day usage, I would never refer to an electric motor as an electric engine or just engine, but I don't know why. Maybe just because I have never heard nor seen it used referred to as electric engine. So it just sounds/feels weird to say/type it. That is the opposite from definitely referring to an ICE as a motor.

English is just weird.

If you're not confused enough, here's another exercise: try distinguishing generator, dynamo and alternator.

DC from fuel | DC from mechanical motion | AC from mechanical motion... yes?

Not enough dynamos: build more dynamos.

Nope, because power plants have generators that output AC (pretty much always 3-phase). Not to mention every generator you can buy in a hardware store has AC output (usually single-phase).

A generator is a device that converts mechanical power into electric power. A dynamo is a generator that uses a commutator to produce pulsed DC. An alternator is a generator that produces AC (which may later be rectified & filtered to DC). The term "alternator" is usually restricted to small generators used in automotive applications, larger AC generators such as those in power plants get described more precisely, e.g. induction generators or self-excitation generators. There are some other less-common generator types, such as homopolar generators that output continuous DC.

Interesting, in cars the terms "generator" and "alternator" are used to refer to a DC device (dynamo?) and an AC device, respectively. Cars used DC generators for their electricity until the 60s/early 70s (depending on make/model) when they started using an AC alternator with a rectifier to make a constant 14VDC.

It is weird if you look from top down view like organized “Queens English”.

Truth is people just made stuff -bottom up- if some phrase was used it just spread out or not.

It is that even rather close neighbors might use different names or phrases for the same thing or same names for different things.

Even if at school you learn a generic version.

> Even if at school you learn a generic version.

On a slight tangent, I took 3 years of Spanish in school in Texas where they taught Castilian Spanish instead of Mexican Spanish. You know how often I speak to Castilian Spanish people vs Mexican Spanish people...in Texas?

Similar problem in Canada where Parisian French is often taught in English Canadian schools rather than Quebecois.

As the resident of a northeastern US state, relatives on one side of my family grew up speaking French, so naturally I took French in high school. I was embarrassed when I still couldn't speak French with the family and had to resort to English when visiting Montreal.

I was, however, vindicated later in life when I visited France and was able to get by without English.

AIUI the Quebecois understand Metropolitan French (from movies, literature, etc.), it's just not what they actually speak. Canadian and Cajun French, again AIUI, are mostly derivative from Norman and Breton, which were never really the same as Parisian, and the emigrants who defined the language left before the French state was able to force Parisian language onto everyone in the country. It's not as far removed as, say, Provencal (which is in some respects closer to Catalan), but definitely not the same as Parisian, and they've had centuries of isolation from the developments in the mother country, during which they've been exposed to a torrent of English (and American English at that; don't @ me, Canadians, we speak the same English and it's distinctly not British, ANZ, or Indian, even if we spell and pronounce a few things differently).

That's a great breakdown. To my ears, one of the big differences in Canadian vs. Metropolitan French is that the former is very much in the throat, while the latter is in the nose.

Standing in line for currency exchange in Montreal behind a French couple almost broke my brain as I tried to listen into their conversation with the worker.

I don’t know how true this is, but I have read that the French view of Quebec is “they aren’t French people in America, they’re Americans who happen to speak French.”

i dunno, when i hear french teachers at english schools in bc, that accent is far from parisian

A lot of people in RGV are directly Castilian descended as they will insist on telling you.

That’s why I personally don’t like ideas like “queens English”, ect… language is defined by the way people use it. Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me.

but maybe there are some gates are meant to be kept. language evolves, sure, but I literally can't use literally to mean literally anymore because it's sloppily become to also mean figuratively. in this day and age, bureaucracy doesn't have to be glacially slow, and new words could be proposed and officially adopted, if (wait hang on there couldn't possibly be a problem with my plan) people would follow the rules set down by a committee.

Thing is, we have such committees for English, and they say Internet should not be capitalized and I say it should, just like Earth or Sun, there's only one.

The thing about language is it’s basically the world’s most pure democracy. Communities, cultures, ect… each decide for themselves how they’re going to use it. Individuals or organisations can attempt to establish themselves as an authority on how it should be used, by forming committees or writing dictionaries, but the only people who care what they have to say are their own respective community of aligned interests. Everybody else ignores them. I would say if you want your dictionary to be actually useful, then it should attempt describe the way words are actually used, rather than attempt to dictate their permissible use.

I think English is a language that lends itself to this rigid approach a bit more than some other languages, because of how common it is for English as a first language speakers to only speak English. Where I live there are a lot more languages, basically everybody is multilingual, and the level of slang, language mixing and other general bastardisation would probably make a lot of English speakers cringe…

Literally has been used to mean figuratively since the 1800s.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

'The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not new. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of some of the most highly regarded writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, and James Joyce.'

> Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me.

This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise , and they like to coin new terms and discourage popularly used terms.

But not English! It is the true global language with distributed decision-making.

> This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by…

Prescribed to who? Is it typical for French speakers to consult Académie Française before using slang, or inventing a portmanteau, or using other colloquialisms? I doubt many French people care much about the opinions of Académie Française, unless they’re actually trying to enforce the authority they believe themselves to have in some way.

The authority these institutions claim to have is almost always based on the same set of delusions. Some people care about this sort of formalism and will hold them in high esteem. Most people won’t care about their work, or will (I would say rightfully) see an institution like this as attempting to usurp authority over their language. Because a language doesn’t belong to any institution, it belongs to the speakers of that language, who are free to (and typically do) use it in whatever way they feel conveys what they’re trying to communicate.

The only time I’ve ever seen a language authority being widely valued by its community of speakers is where use of the language itself becomes a political issue, like when a mostly dead language is being revived, or when one camp strongly values the use of a language as part of their identity because some opposing camp has a different language.

Check out dfw’s Tense Present for a discussion of these opposing schools, prescriptvist vs descriptivist:

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...

I think the horse left the barn a long time ago with the concept of gatekeeping English. Now, it's just a label of a dialect. Queen's English vs Newfie vs Geordie vs American Mid-Atlantic vs Southern vs Bostonian vs vs vs

In Geordie you don't tend to have completely different words though, save for a few colloquialisms borrowed from old Scandinavian languages. It's not as far removed from actual English as, say, a Pidgin.

Why not "Kings English" now, as the Queen, well, is gone?

We have game engines but no software motors. We do have generators though.

Seems like motors are smaller (or maybe less complex) than engines.

Engines came from steam motors too. Here's a distinction:

Is a steam engine a motor?

A steam motor is a form of steam engine used for light locomotives and light self-propelled motor cars used on railways. The origins of steam motor cars for railways go back to at least the 1850s, if not earlier, as experimental economizations for railways or railroads with marginal budgets.

Fun fact: the French word engin still retains its original meaning of contrivance, contraption. But we still translate "search engine," which refers to this archaic English meaning, as moteur de recherche ("search motor").

“engin de recherche” could have worked as well, but “engin” also has a taken negative connotation of something that doesn’t work well

Pretending that they are anything but synonyms now is ridiculous and I'm glad the article pointed out that they are used that way instead of pretending that the older definitions still have merit like so many prescriptionist folks do.

Me too, especially for engineering, where you often work with people with different locations and backgrounds, and very often work/document in English even in non-English speaking countries. Depending on your native language, you might tend to use one or the other word and it shouldn't matter.

Motors primarily convert electrical energy (or fluid/air pressure in the case of hydraulic/pneumatic motors) into mechanical motion.

Engines primarily convert chemical or thermal energy into mechanical power. The term is also applied metaphorically to a central component that drives a process or system.

> Pretending that they are anything but synonyms now is ridiculous and I'm glad the article pointed out that they are used that way instead of pretending that the older definitions still have merit like so many prescriptionist folks do.

So you are ok with having your opinion about this recorded in online forum's database motors and easily discovered by users of Google's search motor?

> Motors primarily convert electrical energy (or fluid/air pressure in the case of hydraulic/pneumatic motors) into mechanical motion.

Just like you call it a "hydraulic motor" in the parenthesis, the former is an "electric motor" (or rather, "inductance motor", "reluctance motor", etc.).

The term "motor" is used for any conversion into mechanical power. Molecular motors and motor proteins are such examples of entirely chemical motors, albeit at quite small scales.

(The distinction also appears unique to English, as Germanic languages generally just have "motor".)

Rocket motors don't convert electrical energy into anything. Motorways are ways (roads) for automobiles, most of which which use petroleum products for their power. Motorcycles use gasoline to produce their mechanical motion.

I view "motor" as a subtype of "engine". An engine drives a process or system, either literally (producing power from some fuel or other energy source) or figuratively (as in Google's search engine). A motor is a type of engine that changes the momentum of some object.

If you use the expanded definition of engine (e.g., "search engine", where "engine" is mostly used as a synonym of "machine"), then neither is a subtype of the other - they just overlap occasionally.

However, all engines producing motion would also be considered motors (what is under the hood of a classical ICE car is both an engine and a motor, and is just a motor in other Germanic languages), and most motors producing motors would not be referred to as engines (an EV does not have "electric engines").

So for the types of devices where you are likely going to have the discussion - things makings stuff move - motor is the supertype and engine is the subtype.

While I think I agree with your definition of "engine", I'm not sure I agree with the idea of "motor" being a subtype of "engine".

To me, a "motor" is a specific part of a system's powertrain: it's the part which converts some other type of energy into kinetic energy for the purposes of moving the system. On the other hand, an "engine" is a self-contained system that establishes some kind of stable feedback cycle to perform a task.

With that in mind, a car's internal combustion engine is the motor of the car, since that's the place where chemical energy becomes kinetic energy, which results in motion after being transferred through the drivetrain.

If you take the same exact engine out of the car, mount it in some fixed position, and rig it up to generate electricity, I wouldn't technically call it a "motor" anymore, because it's not acting to move the system it's a part of. (That being said, I probably wouldn't split hairs here, since the engine was originally designed to be a motor. But you see my point.)

Importantly, this lets us fit diesel trains into our definition: they use diesel engines to generate electricity, but electric motors to actually make the train move. In an old steam-driven train,

It also addresses the question of what to call the part of a model rocket that makes it go up. It's the part of the rocket's powertrain which converts chemical energy into kinetic energy that moves the system. It's a *motor*.

---

So, with all that said, an interesting point is that the terms "motor engine" and "engine motor" both make sense, but don't mean the same thing. "Motor engine" describes an engine designed to perform the role of motor (as opposed to a "generator engine"), whereas "engine motor" describes a specific kind of motor (as opposed to a "chemical motor").

>So you are ok with having your opinion about this recorded in online forum's database motors and easily discovered by users of Google's search motor?

Yes, assuming you're OK with your foolishness being recorded the same way.

That was a really poor counterargument on your part.

... engine and motor has never been synonymous. The phrase "electric engine" should cause physical discomfort to anyone hearing it.

But feel free to call it all a motor - that's a clean superset of all the things an average person would use either term for[0], and most languages don't even have the "engine" term anyway, indeed using motor for the whole lot.

[1]: For other uses like "train engine", there are more distinct alternatives such as "locomotive".

My native language is German. We only have the word Motor. Thought engine is just the 1:1 translation of it, but apparently not.

> We only have the word Motor

I disagree, depending on the context you also use "Maschine" and "Triebwerk" in instances where english would use engine.

For example you would not translate "jet engine" to "Düsenmotor" but instead "Düsentriebwerk" and "steam engine" is translated to "Dampfmaschine"

"die Maschine ist im Eimer" is something "old" people like myself would happily say about the, well, engine of a car that broke. Maschinenschaden. broken engine.

greetings from Nürnberg, Mittelfranken...

Yeah, but Maschine is machine. Or at least I thought so.

yup that's also tempting

Dampfmaschine = steam engine

which unless specified otherwise boils down to locomotive...

the two languages are so similar yet different. what amazed me the most was that in English speaking countries they learn beautiful English words, famose worte of sorts.

Same in Polish. "Silnik" is both motor and engine. You add second word to specify the kind (electric, combustion, stirling, steam, ...).

I think silnik translates most directly to powerplant in English, given that the root word is siła.

Power plant would be elektrownia. The suffix -nik is a common one that one can append to almost any noun to indicate that something or someone doing something, e.g. robot, robotnik (worker). So silnik translates to motor/engine, not powerplant.

In English, you can use the word powerplant in a more abstract sense, e.g., to refer to the engine or motor of a car. It doesn’t only specifically mean the large industrial building which generates electricity, as I believe elektrownia does.

I think your note about the -nik suffix is congruent with my point. A silnik is a thing that is doing/making siła.

To clarify, I’m perfectly aware that if I tell someone in Poland that I have a problem with my silnik, I’m referring to the engine in my vehicle. But in this discussion here, I’m talking about the most direct translation.

As someone fluent in both English and Polish (being my native language), I cannot see how silnik and a fixed place where power is generated, specifically connected to a network where that power is put out (i.e. powerplant) have anything in common.

The only direct translation of the word is really just engine/motor, one can often use the word motor to mean silnik as well.

English is my native language, and I'm confident that powerplant can indeed be used in the more abstract sense as I wrote in my previous comment.

This can be evidenced[0], for example, in motorsport journalism.

> For more than a quarter of a century, Cosworth’s DFV (and it’s variants) was the off-the-peg powerplant of choice for independent F1 teams

Or of course, in the dictionary[1].

[0]: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/the-best-engine-p...

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/power%20plant

That seems more like a typo than anything, in Formula jargon the engine is called a "power unit" not plant, not to mention that that a plant is generally a place of industry and not a object (e.g., nuclear plant ...).

In either case, calling a "silnik" a "powerplant" is a very large stretch, where as a "powerunit" would be a more accurate translation since it has the same meaning as a engine/motor.

> That seems more like a typo than anything

I assure you it isn't.

> To increase the agility, steering response, handling and starting performance of the Macan T, Porsche uses a particularly light powerplant

https://media.porsche.com/mediakit/macan/en/the-new-macan/ma...

> Porsche has developed a hydrogen powerplant prototype that can be installed in luxury sports cars and perform as well as a 4.4-liter, eight-cylinder petrol engine

https://www.ryzehydrogen.com/2023/03/07/5172/

> Of course, removing the roof completely on a car boasting such a supreme powerplant presents its own set of unique aerodynamic challenges

https://www.ferrari.com/en-EN/magazine/articles/the-ferrari-...

> The Mercedes-AMG GLC 63 S E Performance allies a hefty 671bhp powerplant to a 2,310kg body

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/mercedes-benz/glc-amg-es...

I don't see how quoting random articles proves either or, specially when it comes to specific jargon in a sport or even the original topic here wrt. engine vs. motor.

> This article gives an outline of Formula One engines, also called Formula One power units since the hybrid era starting in 2014. Since its inception in 1947, Formula One has used a variety of engine regulations. Formulae limiting engine capacity had been used in Grand Prix racing on a regular basis since after World War I. The engine formulae are divided according to era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_engines

You are also not really addressing the original point you where making that "powerplant" is a "direct translation" of the word "silnik".

Quoting random articles should prove the point that the author of that page on the F1 website did not in fact make a typo, as you suggested. The word powerplant is used — fairly commonly, both written and spoken — in motoring journalism in place of the word engine or motor.

I don't find your arguments convincing, for the logical holes I've spotted. I don't think you find my arguments convincing either, so I guess we'll leave it at that.

The word “siłownia” could be directly translated to power plant though, -ownia is being a suffix for places / plants.

The way I see it:

A motor produces locomotion. It makes other things move.

An engine produces power. Locomotion can be derived from power but isn't required to.

A train locomotive might be referred to as a "locomotive engine".

A car with an internal combustion engine moves from power generated by that engine. But a car with electric motors does not have an engine because power is not produced there. Power is produced elsewhere and then stored in the battery. Locomotion is produced by consuming the stored power.

Of course, that's just my interpretation of the two words without referring to a dictionary.

A tractor was originally a "traction engine", to distinguish it from the steam engines you would haul around with horses to power equipment.

Go further back and there were machines called "siege engines".

also, fire engines

I used to think along these lines. But in actuality, not so much. By this definition they're the same thing. An electric motor converts electric energy into kinetic energy. A gasoline engine converts chemical energy to kinetic energy (and even more waste heat than the electric motor). (Neither of them produces power, this is of course impossible. Unless you're subtly using a very specific technical meaning of the word?) This input/output difference is a minor distinction.

Or in other words: the power that a gasoline engine uses wasn't produced in the engine, it was produced by geological and chemical means, and in a giant refinery somewhere else.

> An engine produces power. Locomotion can be derived from power but isn't required to.

By this definition, is a fuel cell an engine?

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/fuel-cells#:~:text=A%2....

Perhaps! But I think by the time you're asking these kinds of questions you're then also dealing with one of the many reasons definitions can become nuanced as technology moves on.

Or even just a barrel of fuel that's lit on fire to produce thermal energy

And with an ICE, power is produced elsewhere and stored in the fuel tank.

> The OED lists a second definition of “engineer” as well. “It is synonymous with the older usage meaning ‘artifice,’” says Fuller. “An engineer is an author or designer of something, a person who contrives a plot, a schemer.” A definition one can only hope will soon pass from common usage.

I am not at all sure why.

This is an enormously valuable concept: that plots require both participants and also people who do not just direct it or order it, or even just design it, hands off (often called "the architect of the plot"). They need people who are there from start to finish, like an author is; involved in every corner.

In my usage, Engine is generally something that consumes gasoline (sometimes Diesel) and generate rotational power and lots of exhaust gas and heat.

I almost always use the term motor for an electromechanical machine that turns electrical into mechanical power.

Like all words, there's ambiguity to it.

This is how I use it as well. It is a convenient way to encode a hint about the power source into the base word. A slight refinement of the language and a good example of how languages evolve over time to better suit the era they are in.

Same here. Maybe it’s how I grew up. Gas engine Electric motor Never understood why people used the word motor to describe the engine.

Similar for me, except that I always saw engine as specific type of motor. Hence "motorsports" was perfectly normal for gas burning vehicular racing.

So, uh, Harley Davidson is a well-known brand of noisy engine cycles to you, then?

In my language, everything is a motor and the "engine" root is only used in engineer.

Not sure about your particular language but I'm appending to this comment to say that plenty of people saying latin languages don't have a word for engine are probably wrong.

Motor comes from latin "that which moves something", for example in italian that's "motore".

Engineer is "ingegnere", someone who uses "ingegno". So I'd argue the word for engine, in italian at least, is "marchingegno", which has somewhat a bad connotation (overly complex). I'm unsure if this was always the case. Translators give "contraption" which fits my understanding for the english word. So a generic word for a complex machine that does something.

That said it's not used and you'll never hear someone talking about the marchingegno in a FIAT panda

A related bit of terminology I recently picked up[0] is "electric motor" vs. "electric machine", with the latter being preferred when the machine can function as either a motor or a generator (as is the case e.g. for most brushless DC motors).

[0]: I've been working my way through this book: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Brushless-Permanent-Magnet-Mac...

My understanding engine is a device governed by laws of thermodynamics, whereas motor is based on electrodynamics.

Always thought calling car engine a motor is incorrect, shouldn’t be used interchangeably. In my experience machinery would be common name for both in engineering terms, not daily usage.

Is a bicycle an engine (or a motor)? It is a machine with moving parts that converts power into motion.

Engine converts lower form of energy, like heat, into higher form of energy, like kinetic, at a loss. It’s shifting up

Motor converts equivalent forms of energy, or down, at very high efficiency. Electric to kinetic

> “Engine” is from the Latin ingenium: character, mental powers, talent, intellect, or cleverness.

And thus we get a common root for the words engine and genius. Fascinating.

In French and German the word for engineer is "Ingenieur"

ingénieur (with the accent) in french

If asked to craft a definition, I would offer that motors are electrical and use magnetism to induce rotation on an armature.

Engines are chemically driven and use some flavor of combination to rotate a shaft.

>> Today, the words are virtually synonymous.

Ehhh that's a stretch, unless we're talking Real Housewives type of "lay people".

As I understand it (within an engineering context), a "motor" converts electrical energy to mechanical energy, and an "engine" takes thermal/chemical/some other form of mechanical energy and outputs mechanical energy. But it's confusing because I've changed the "motor" in my old Honda when I was a teenager. So while I agree there is some nuance and blurry lines, not sure the two words are quite "interchangeable".

It seems reasonable to say that a motor is something that moves something else, while an engine is also something that moves something else but uses internal moving parts of its own. We can just leave it at that. All engines that involve physical motion are motors, but not all motors are engines.

That seems better than making arbitrary distinctions regarding which type of input energy is being transformed into which output type. It would also be compatible with the OED definition mentioned in the article, as well as terminology used in rocketry.

Disagree that not all motors are engines, I'd say motor is a subset of engine. An engine drives a process or system, either literally (producing power from some fuel or other energy source) or figuratively (as in Google's search engine). A motor is a type of engine that changes the momentum of some object.

This fits every definition I can think of.

I agree with this but I also wouldn't blink if someone used one or the other term unless there was a specific context where it was important.

Yep, pretty pointless hill to die on.

Wouldn't want to anger a mean biker who was a member of a violent enginecycle gang ;)