engage
/ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.36 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Thus ſhall mankind his guardian care engage, / The promis'd father of the future age."
- "the difficult task of engaging him in conversation"
- "Shapps refused to engage with the unions and claimed that the industrial disputes were nothing to do with him, despite controlling the purse strings."
- "This humanity and good nature engages every body to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them all his family are in a good humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: […]"
- "1698-1699, Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs a favourable opportunity of engaging the enemy"
- "Having failed to become the first warship to shoot down another planet, the fleet would then engage the Italian cruiser screen the next afternoon, with Sydney not scoring any hits on its opposite numbers but managing to damage an Italian destroyer."
Etymology
From Middle English engagen, from Old French engagier (“to pledge, engage”), from Old French en- (“in, under”) + gage (“pledge”), from Frankish *wadi (“pledge”), from Proto-Germanic *wadją (“pledge, guarantee”), from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to pledge, redeem a pledge; guarantee, bail”), equivalent to en- + gage. Cognate with Old English weddian (“to engage, covenant, undertake”), German wetten (“to bet, wager”), Icelandic veðja (“to wager”). More at wed.