Word Finder - engagement

definition

An appointment, especially to speak or perform.

example

The lecturer has three speaking engagements this week.

definition

Connection or attachment.

example

Check the gears for full engagement before turning the handle.

definition

(by extension, about human emotional state) The feeling of being compelled, drawn in, connected to what is happening, interested in what will happen next.

definition

The period of time when marriage is planned or promised.

example

We are enjoying a long engagement, but haven't yet set a date.

definition

In any situation of conflict, an actual instance of active hostilities.

example

The engagement resulted in many casualties.

definition

The point at which the fencers are close enough to join blades, or to make an effective attack during an encounter.

example

After engagement it quickly became clear which of the fencers was going to prevail.

That evening everyone met in Springtown for an engagement party.

If this hadn't been an engagement party for Denton and Clarissa, she would have stayed at home.

We pass it on like an engagement ring.

Upon the execution of Charles, Cooper took the Engagement, and was a commissioner to administer it in Dorsetshire.

You take time to think about a date, but I want to take you out tomorrow to look at engagement rings.

An engagement followed in which the Aeginetans were defeated.

As I said, we've drug this engagement out too long.

The engagement had gone on too long.

The final engagement, in which the Goths fought with the courage of despair, took place on swampy ground in the Dobrudja near Abritum (Abrittus) or Forum Trebonii and ended in the defeat and death of Decius and his son.

In 1810 he received letters from his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the old prince made difficulties.

Jackson poured champagne and they toasted their engagement.

Tonight she would break the engagement with Denton... then she would face her father.

His engagement was for a salary of 75 lire (about X30) a month, a sum so large for that period as to mark conspicuously the high regard in which his art was held.

He was made acting-lieutenant in the West Indies in the same year, and the rank was confirmed in 1744 During the Jacobite rising of 1745 he commanded the "Baltimore" sloop in the North Sea, and was dangerously wounded in the head while co-operating with a frigate in an engagement with two strong French privateers.

During the Civil War Halifax was garrisoned by parliament, and a field near it is still called the Bloody Field on account of an engagement which took place there between the forces of parliament and the Royalists.

Drew continued to work at his trade till 1805, when he entered into an engagement with Dr Thomas Coke, a prominent Wesleyan official, which enabled him to devote himself entirely to literature.

After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations sprang up between them.

Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the background.

To simplify the event, the engagement party should include family and close friends.

After all, it was the night of our official engagement.

If you're going to go to work for the woman—and God knows she needs your help—she has to agree to the rules of engagement.

Elisabeth's little sister would have reacted exactly the same way to her sister's engagement.

Let's consummate our engagement.

Their little get-togethers took place on Thursday nights unless one or the other had a pressing engagement.

It was time to break the engagement.

Both the army and the parliament gave cold replies to his offers to negotiate; and Charles, on the 27th of December 1647, entered into the Engagement with the Scots by which he promised the establishment of Presbyterianism for three years, the suppression of the Independents and their sects, together with privileges for the Scottish nobles, while the Scots undertook to invade England and restore him to his throne.

Some delay was caused in beginning operations by Cromwell's dangerous illness, during which his life was despaired of; but in June he was confronting Leslie entrenched in the hills near Stirling, impregnable to attack and refusing an engagement.

This was matter of contract, and the hirer, who usually paid in advance, might demand a guarantee to fulfil the engagement.

In 424 B.C. they were attacked by Sitalces, king of the Odrysae, who was defeated and lost his life in the engagement.

Having been excommunicated for this by the pope, he promised to make amends to the church; but he died in 1223 before doing anything to fulfil his engagement.

He had accepted an engagement there as conductor; but, the lessee becoming bankrupt, the scheme was abandoned in favour of a better appointment at Riga.

After threatening an invasion in 1137, David marched into England in 1138, but sustained a crushing defeat on Cutton Moor in the engagement known as the battle of the Standard.

Issuing orders to Davout, Oudinot and his cavalry to concentrate with all speed towards Eckmuhl, he himself rode back along the Regensburg road and reached the battle-field just as the engagement between the advance troops had commenced.

With horses only just recovering from an epidemic, they proved quite unequal to the task of catching the Cossacks, who swarmed round them in every direction, never accepting an engagement but compelling a constant watchfulness for which nothing in their previous experience had sufficiently prepared the French.

Here he was attacked by Wellington (March 29) and, after a further engagement at Sabugal (April 3, 1811), he fell back through Ciudad to Salamanca, having lost in Portugal nearly 30,000 men, chiefly from want and disease, and 6000 in the retreat alone.

On the 25th an interview took place, in which Ibrahim gave a verbal engagement not to act against the Greeks, pending orders from the sultan.

A short engagement in Spain, as tutor to the son of Marshal de Saint Luc, was terminated by another quarrel; and Dempster now returned to Scotland with the intention of asserting a claim to his father's estates.

Such exemption would be contrary to the engagement to respect the independence of the sultan solemnly made in 1862.

They kept their engagement when Robert died on his journey (1035), though the young duke-elect was a mere boy.

He served in the Northern Campaign under his father-in-law, General Taylor, and was greatly distinguished for gallantry and soldierly conduct at Monterey and particularly at Buena Vista, where he was severely wounded early in the engagement, but continued in command of his regiment until victory crowned the American arms. While still in the field he was appointed (May 1847) by President Polk to be brigadier-general of volunteers; but this appointment Davis declined, on the ground, as he afterwards said, "that volunteers are militia and the Constitution reserves to the state the appointment of all militia officers."

In this engagement the advanced body of British troops, 3000 strong, under Symons, held a camp called Craigside which lay between Glencoe and Dundee, and from this position General Symons hoped to be able to hold the northern portion of Natal.

Olaf also visited !Ethelred at the latter's request and, receiving a most honourable welcome, was induced to promise that he would never again come to England with hostile intent, an engagement which he faithfully kept.

The tactics in war were the traditional nomad tactics of harassing the enemy on the march, constantly retreating before him and avoiding a general engagement.

Shepstone determined to dispense with his further services as a government servant, and terminated the engagement.

Having been defeated at Laing's Nek, and suffered considerable loss in an engagement near Ingogo, Colley took a force to the top of Majuba, a mountain overlooking the Boer camp and the nek.

The engagement was disastrous to the British, who had undertaken far too comprehensive an attack, and the Natal Field Force was obliged to fall back upon Ladysmith with the loss of 1500 men, including a large number of prisoners belonging to the left column under Lieut.-Colonel F.R.C. Carleton,who were cut off at Nicholson's Nek and forced to surrender by a mixed force of Transvaalers and Free Staters under Christian de Wet.

The archers fixed the pointed stakes, which they carried to ward off cavalry charges, and opened the engagement with flights of arrows.

A battle took place at that spot on the 3rd of August, but in spite of Ferruccio's heroism he was defeated and killed; the prince of Orange also fell in that desperate engagement.

On his return he assisted his father in surveying the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool && Manchester lines, but in 1824 he accepted an engagement in South America to take charge of the engineering operations of the Colombian Mining Association of London.

On the 18th of this month he moved that the Engagement, with the Solemn League and Covenant, should be burned by the hangman.