Definition of "engaged" []

• Employed, occupied, or busy. (adjective)
• Committed, as to a cause. (adjective)
• Pledged to marry; betrothed: an engaged couple. (adjective)
• Involved in conflict or battle. (adjective)
• Being in gear; meshed. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It was all madness; he was in love, thoroughly attached to Lucy, and engaged, —engaged as strongly as an honorable man need be."
• "Had the ladies not all been driven from the city by the pestilence, I should most assuredly have engaged some one or more of them to solve the question, whether the doctor was engaged in offices of sympathy, or an affair of the heart -- or whether he was actually _engaged_ in any way."
• "The usual consequences followed -- he could not earn money so fast as she could spend it; the house became a scene of discord; the daughter dressed in the fashion; learned to play on the piano; was taught to think that being engaged in any useful employment was very ungenteel; and that to be _engaged to be married_ was the chief end and aim of woman; the father died a bankrupt; the weak and frivolous mother lingered along in beggary, for a while, and then died of vexation and shame."