Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A self-propelled vehicle, usually electric or diesel-powered, for pulling or pushing freight or passenger cars on railroad tracks.
- noun A driving or pulling force; an impetus.
- adjective Of, relating to, or involved in locomotion.
- adjective Serving to put into motion or propel forward.
- adjective Able to move independently from place to place.
- adjective Of or relating to a self-propelled locomotive.
- adjective Of or relating to travel.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Moving from place to place; changing place, or able to effect change of (its own) place: as, a locomotive animal.
- Having the power to produce motion, or to move (something else) from place to place: as, a locomotive organ of the body; a locomotive engine.
- Of or pertaining to locomotion; locomotory.
- noun A steam-engine which travels on wheels turned by its own power; specifically, an engine designed and adapted to travel on a railway; a railroad-engine.
- noun Geared locomotives having toothed driving-wheels, the teeth of which engage a rack, are used for steep grades in mountain railways.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Moving from place to place; changing place, or able to change place.
- adjective Used in producing motion.
- noun A locomotive engine; a self-propelling wheel carriage, especially one which bears a steam boiler and one or more steam engines which communicate motion to the wheels and thus propel the carriage, -- used to convey goods or passengers, or to draw wagons, railroad cars, etc. See
Illustration in Appendix. - noun a locomotive having four pairs of connected drivers.
- noun [U.S.] a locomotive and a car combined in one vehicle; a dummy engine.
- noun Same as
Locomotive , above. - noun See
Mogul .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of or relating to
locomotion - adjective of or relating to the
power unit of atrain which does not carrypassengers orfreight itself - noun rail transport The
power unit of atrain which does not carrypassengers orfreight itself, but pulls thecoaches orrail cars orwagons . - noun rare A
traction engine - noun slang A
cheer characterized by aslow beginning and aprogressive increase inspeed - noun economics A country which
drives the worldeconomy by having a high level of imports. (i.e. The United States).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to locomotion
- noun a wheeled vehicle consisting of a self-propelled engine that is used to draw trains along railway tracks
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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There's no spunk to it, no life; it's very straightforward, almost to the point where I'm going to have to call it locomotive, which is an adjective I try not to use much when describing fiction.
Smoking drivers can smoke a stick of sugar-coated dynamite pabba 2009
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KIEV, Ukraine — A train locomotive rammed through a stalled passenger bus on a railroad crossing in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing 43 people and injuring eight others as the bus was pushed 300 meters (yards) down the tracks.
Ukraine Bus, Train Accident: At Least 40 Killed The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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Who, like a locomotive, is moving forward, no matter what.
Jacqueline Woodson: Book To Stage: On The Adaptation Of The Award-Winning Book 'Locomotion' Into A Play Jacqueline Woodson 2010
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Who, like a locomotive, is moving forward, no matter what.
Jacqueline Woodson: Book To Stage: On The Adaptation Of The Award-Winning Book 'Locomotion' Into A Play Jacqueline Woodson 2010
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If the locomotive is science, we should remember that locomotives run down tracks laid by someone else and can only go to those places to which the tracks already run.
October 15th, 2009 m_francis 2009
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Who, like a locomotive, is moving forward, no matter what.
Jacqueline Woodson: Book To Stage: On The Adaptation Of The Award-Winning Book 'Locomotion' Into A Play Jacqueline Woodson 2010
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Engine 279 is a Baldwin locomotive, built in Philadelphia, first brought into service in 1904, and now spends most of its time resting contentedly in the Cuautla museum, the museum that is housed in the oldest building ever used as a railway station anywhere in the world.
Did you know? Cuautla, Mexico, has the world's oldest railway station building. 2009
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Engine 279 is a Baldwin locomotive, built in Philadelphia, first brought into service in 1904, and now spends most of its time resting contentedly in the Cuautla museum, the museum that is housed in the oldest building ever used as a railway station anywhere in the world.
Did you know? Cuautla, Mexico, has the world's oldest railway station building. 2009
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Mr. McCollum, now 40, has been arrested 21 times, most recently last June when he tried to steal a locomotive from a railyard in Jamaica, Queens.
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He was trying to estimate the possible result of putting the "kettle," as he called the locomotive, at full steam ahead, disregarding every other tap and gauge on the driving plate, and devoting himself to heaping up the furnace.
The Watchers of the Plains A Tale of the Western Prairies Ridgwell Cullum 1905
hernesheir commented on the word locomotive
"Stop; Look; Listen.
1912 slogan that replaced that of the old US railway-crossing signs that said "Look out for the locomotive".
September 25, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word locomotive
locomotive: A train with insane ideas.
September 25, 2009
jmjarmstrong commented on the word locomotive
JM knows that train robbers must have a locomotive.
May 25, 2011