fire engine

[ fahyuhr-en-juhn ]
See synonyms for fire engine on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a vehicle equipped for firefighting, now usually a motor truck having a motor-driven pump for shooting water or chemical solutions at high pressure.

Origin of fire engine

1
First recorded in 1670–80

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use fire engine in a sentence

  • While he sat there some bells began ringing furiously and a steam fire engine rushed by.

    Ralph Granger's Fortunes | William Perry Brown
  • In the following year Braithwaite and Ericsson in London brought out the first portable fire-engine.

    Invention | Bradley A. Fiske
  • Suddenly there was a clang-clang of gongs, and all traffic drew to one side to allow the passage of a flying motor fire-engine.

    The Daffodil Mystery | Edgar Wallace
  • The Steam Fire-Engine is still another form of portable engine.

British Dictionary definitions for fire engine

fire engine

noun
  1. a heavy road vehicle that carries firefighters and firefighting equipment to a fire

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012