Definition of "steam engine" [steam• en•gine]

• An engine that converts the heat energy of pressurized steam into mechanical energy, especially one in which steam drives a piston in a closed cylinder. (noun)

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.

• "They run the steam engine on sawmill offcuts and the cherry laurel they are gradually clearing from the underwood."
• "I worked at it like a stoker on the footplate of a steam engine and resolved one day to build myself a wood-fired sauna, even making a few soggy drawings of the plan and elevation."
• "The first thing we saw when we arrived was the enormous vintage Britannia steam engine the community uses to drive a sawmill with a twenty-foot bench housed in a barn they have insulated for sound with dozens of mattresses in the roof and straw-bales for walls."