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engage
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engage as in:  engage in conversation

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • At the time, she was engaged in a research project at Stanford.
    engaged = involved
  • 10% reported that they engage in at least one argument during most days.
    engage = participate
  • I admire her civic engagement and service to the community.
    engagement = meaningful interaction
  • She has an engaging writing style and a good turn of phrase.
    engaging = interesting
  • My confidence in you has been seriously diminished since I heard about the disreputable activities in which you engaged on Thursday last.   (source)
    engaged = were involved
  • When the men try to engage him in conversation, he responds with words of encouragement, trying to turn their fear into hope.   (source)
    engage = involve
  • I don't know what caused the transformation, why suddenly I could engage with the great thinkers of the past, rather than revere them to the point of muteness.   (source)
    engage = interact (with their ideas)
  • Like I've mentioned before, you need to be engaged, look at the jurors now and then …   (source)
    engaged = involved (showing interest)
  • The spitting was due to the fact that she and Rosa Hubermann were engaged in some kind of decade-long verbal war.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • We are forbidden to engage in any combative exercise with another tribute.   (source)
    engage = get involved
▲ show less (of above)
show 86 more with this conextual meaning
  • A reticence broken only by her secret, droopy smiles and the furtive, apologetic looks she cast my way when the general's attention was engaged elsewhere.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (involved)
  • Martha tried to engage Gus in conversation, kneeling down next to him and saying, "You've always had such beautiful eyes."   (source)
    engage = involve
  • I took a seat at my desk and tapped the Engage icon at the edge of my display.   (source)
    engage = get involved
  • From what I can see, each fight you've engaged in has resolved one problem or another.   (source)
    engaged = been involved
  • It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others.   (source)
    engaging = being involved
  • The Japanese turned on civilians, engaging in killing contests, raping tens of thousands of people, mutilating and crucifying them, and provoking dogs to maul them.   (source)
  • It is remarkable that nearly every scientist in genetics research is also engaged in the commerce of biotechnology.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • As they walked the corridor, Ender noticed several older boys seemingly engaged in conversations in branching corridors and ladderways; some were in their corridor, walking slowly in the other direction.   (source)
  • Boxes lined the walls and the center floor had been cleared for dancing—several older couples from Great Faith were already engaged in movements I had never seen before.   (source)
  • They were engaged in some wild conversation that made no sense to anyone but themselves.   (source)
  • According to Laura, on all of these occasions — and there had been only three of them — she and Alex Thomas had been engaged in serious discussion.   (source)
  • He was engaged in a rebellion she didn't completely understand.   (source)
  • The rumor mill informed me that the dinner was a kind of intermediate interview: We needed to be funny, charming, and engaging, or we'd never be invited to the D.C. or New York offices for final interviews.   (source)
    engaging = interesting
  • Packed tightly together, the soldiers had at first engaged in animated speculation on what might await them.   (source)
    engaged = participated
  • He became so engaged in the work that he asked the federal judge he was clerking for after law school if he could cut short his two-year clerkship to join us in Alabama.   (source)
    engaged = interested
  • Usually detached and cool under pressure, Fache tonight seemed emotionally engaged, as if this were somehow a personal matter for him.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Normally, orbits would be worked out by Vogel, but he was otherwise engaged.   (source)
    engaged = busy
  • More compelling than their testimony, however, is the casual shoptalk they engage in while waiting in the corridor to take the stand.   (source)
    engage = participate
  • It was so sweet and the dough was so flaky, every millimeter of my mouth was engaged, taking over the rest of my senses entirely.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Aunt Alexandra got up from the table and swiftly passed more refreshments, neatly engaging Mrs. Merriweather and Mrs. Gates in brisk conversation.   (source)
    engaging = involving
  • You will answer yes or no. Is it true that you have engaged with the Widow Tupper in various enchantments with the direct intent of causing mischief to certain people?   (source)
    engaged = been involved
  • DANFORTH, himself engaged and entered by Abigail:  Mary Warren, do you witch her? I say to you, do you send your spirit out?   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • English and American troops are already engaged in heavy combat.   (source)
  • To lessen his fears, Jack tried to engage the Milliner in a little chitchat.   (source)
    engage = involve
  • He "was eminently engaging and social and he had a keen sense of humor," his partners wrote.   (source)
    engaging = interesting
  • Saeed did not ask Nadia to pray with him for his father, and she did not offer, but when he was gathering a circle of acquaintances to pray in the long evening shadow cast by their dormitory, she said she would like to join the circle, to sit with Saeed and the others, even if not engaged in supplication herself, and he smiled and said there was no need.   (source)
    engaged = participating
  • Through hard work and a tight budget, Larry was able to support his family so Janice could be the full-time, dependable, engaged mother she'd never had.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Sacks and boxes were piled high waiting to be delivered to the ships that sailed the Sea of Knowledge, and off to one side a group of minstrels sang songs to the delight of those either too young or too old to engage in trade.   (source)
    engage = get involved
  • "It needs great courage, sir, to engage in the cause of America," she added, fiercely proud of her "Mr. A."   (source)
    engage = work
  • Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Half a dozen nurses ... were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor.   (source)
  • Eluding Jordan's undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.   (source)
  • When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again: "Do you know what day it is?"   (source)
  • In the way of literary talk, it is true, the Naval Officer—an excellent fellow, who came into the office with me, and went out only a little later—would often engage me in a discussion about one or the other of his favourite topics, Napoleon or Shakespeare.   (source)
    engage = involve
  • My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds.   (source)
    engaged = was involved
  • The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (involved)
  • ...although there doubtless are such unconquerable young ladies of eighteen ... as are never to be persuaded into love against their judgment by all that talent, manner, attention, and flattery can do, I have no inclination to believe Fanny one of them ... had not her affection been engaged elsewhere.   (source)
    engaged = occupied or attracted
  • Or, for that matter, engage in any kind of physical exertion.   (source)
    engage = participate (take part)
  • Joe often engaged in split conversations of this sort.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Alyss said nothing, remembering the surprise of seeing her mother engage so readily in combat.   (source)
    engage = participate (take part)
  • She liked working with her husband and often watched him when he was engaged with a customer.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • They hoist up the block of ice that encases him, and engage in a conference.   (source)
    engage = participate (take part)
  • Unlike me, she'd gradually abandoned her attempts at engaging him.   (source)
    engaging = interacting
  • It was poor OASIS etiquette to try to talk to an engaged avatar.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (busy)
  • "British landing craft are engaged in combat with German naval units," according to the BBC.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • But they were standing in the middle of it, and he was already engaged in exactly that.   (source)
  • She appears to have no children or family, no one who engages with her or shows her affection.   (source)
    engages = interacts in a serious way
  • Unlike most people engaged in the various arts of thievery, Viktor Chemmel had it all.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • The public is engaged, and we will do our best to keep everyone informed.   (source)
    engaged = interested
  • Professors here like to engage with students.   (source)
    engage = interact
  • Instead, Hammond behaved as if they were engaged in a purely social outing.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table.   (source)
    engaged = occupied
  • Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same job as himself.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release.   (source)
  • From now onwards Animal Farm would engage in trade with the neighboring farms: not, of course, for any commercial purpose, but simply in order to obtain certain materials which were urgently necessary.   (source)
    engage = participate (take part)
  • No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade.   (source)
    engage = get involved
  • Never to have any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make use of money — had not these been among the earliest resolutions passed at that first triumphant Meeting after Jones was expelled?   (source)
  • Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active rebellion against the Party, but with no notion of how to take the first step.   (source)
    engaging = being involved
  • He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade and using money had never been passed, or even suggested.   (source)
  • They were engaged in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it was that they were reporting on he had never definitely found out.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon was engaged in complicated negotiations with Frederick and Pilkington.   (source)
  • Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention.   (source)
    engaged = busy (involved with)
  • Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • There was even a whole sub-section — Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak — engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.   (source)
  • Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared.   (source)
    engaged = been involved
  • And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and meters, was engaged in producing garbled versions — definitive texts, they were called — of poems which had become ideologically offensive, but which for one reason or another were to be retained in the anthologies.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary activities generally.   (source)
  • She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising lesson.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (busy)
  • The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (involved)
  • …then returning to her seat to finish a note which she was previously engaged in writing for...   (source)
    engaged = interacted, interested, or attracted
  • It was, indeed, a filthy process in which I was engaged.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • I answered — "I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir."   (source)
    engaged = occupied (involved)
  • All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable.   (source)
  • The huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses engaged my admiration by turns.   (source)
    engaged = attracted and involved
  • First mate angry, said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men, said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with the handspike.   (source)
    engage = work
  • One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano, and beside her stood a tall, red-haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear.   (source)
    engaged = occupied (involved)
  • I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest.   (source)
    engaged = working
  • This purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties.   (source)
    engage = involve
  • It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy.   (source)
    engage = get involved
  • There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit; while the Surveyor—though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation—was fond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance.   (source)
    engaging = involving
  • In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam.   (source)
    engaged = involved
  • "I must entreat Miss Julia Bertram," said he, "not to engage in the part of Agatha, or it will be the ruin of all my solemnity."   (source)
    engage = play (occupy the role)
  • "I would not engage in such a charge," cried Fanny, in a shrinking accent; "in such an office of high responsibility!"   (source)
    engage = get involved
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engage as in:  engage her services

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • I would like to engage your services.
    engage = hire
  • It was Saturday and she had an important engagement.   (source)
    engagement = activity
  • Ah, you're cross with me because I've been engaged all week, aren't you?   (source)
    engaged = busy or occupied
  • He has an unexpected engagement.   (source)
    engagement = activity
  • I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • I laughed again, and told him that having most of your social engagements occur at a children's hospital also did not encourage promiscuity, and then we talked about Peter Van Houten's amazingly brilliant comment about the sluttiness of time, and even though I was in bed and he was in his basement, it really felt like we were back in that uncreated third space, which was a place I really liked visiting with him.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • He and Winifred had already engaged what they considered to be a suitable staff for the running of his household — people who knew the ropes, he said.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • Then one evening she started an engagement at the Quality Inn and found a microphone and sound system all set up.   (source)
    engagement = job
  • Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian where he discovered a small animal show and was immediately engaged to wash the camel.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • Shortly before eight o'clock his son left the dining room to go up to his room and dress for an engagement in the city later that night.   (source)
    engagement = activity
▲ show less (of above)
show 59 more with this conextual meaning
  • Wishing only to be with her, he canceled every social engagement he could.   (source)
  • We were engaged by letter, through an agency.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • He did not remember things very well, unless he put them down on his Engagement Tablet: like this: Gandalf Tea Wednesday.   (source)
    engagement = appointment or commitment
  • And we all took the less explicable step of engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel.   (source)
    engaging = occupying
  • Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted.   (source)
    engaged = arranged
  • For One Night Only, On account of imperative European engagements!   (source)
    engagements = bookings (promises to perform)
  • Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion.   (source)
    engagement = commitment
  • I heard him as I came upstairs, and the theatre is engaged of course by those indefatigable rehearsers, Agatha and Frederick.   (source)
    engaged = occupied
  • Richard had various engagements during the day.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • If in the opinion of Mr. Burnham the builder is not employing a sufficient force of men to complete the work on time, Mr. Burnham is authorized to engage men himself and charge the cost to the builder.   (source)
    engage = hire
  • But no matter where her engagements took her, she would always be back home in Statesboro—an hour west of Savannah—to play at the Rotary Club lunch on Monday, the Lions on Tuesday, the Kiwanis on Thursday, and the First Baptist Church on Sunday.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • During the show's earlier engagement in London, the Indians attacked the coach as it raced across the grounds of Windsor Castle carrying four kings and the prince of Wales.   (source)
    engagement = booking
  • In the place of Miss Violence, he engaged a man called Mr. Erskine, who'd once taught at a boys' school in England but had been packed off to Canada, suddenly, for his health.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • I suppose that our time is out—our engagement ended, and I fear that Burnham is disposed to let us go and depend on Ulrich—for Burnham is not competent to see the incompetency of Ulrich & the need of deliberate thought.   (source)
    engagement = booking
  • I know not what part of my conduct, in either public or private life, can have authorized a doubt of my fidelity to the public engagements.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • The first call of the day was on Benjamin Franklin, and from that point on Adams was kept steadily on the move, with sights to see, social engagements, dinners, teas, the theater.   (source)
  • I was not engaged to kill dragons, that is warrior's work, but to steal treasure.   (source)
    engaged = recruited
  • You were engaged, as you say, by letter.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • Vera explained the circumstances of her secretarial engagement.   (source)
    engagement = hiring
  • The letter engaging us?   (source)
  • There was the old party what engaged me a waitin' in the 'ouse at Purfleet.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • My niece walk to a dinner engagement at this time of the year!   (source)
    engagement = activity
  • I often refused to accompany him, alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone.   (source)
    engagement = task to do
  • He was engaged to dinner already both for that day and the next;   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack.   (source)
    engaged = occupied
  • The usual plea of increasing engagements was made in excuse for not having written to her earlier;   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come and see it.   (source)
    engagements = bookings (promises to perform)
  • I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party, and that you are free.   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.   (source)
  • This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage him.   (source)
    engage = hire
  • I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing.   (source)
  • I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from which I expected peace.   (source)
    engagement = promised job
  • Will not you engage to attend with your eyes steadily fixed on him the whole time—as I shall do—not to lose a word; or only looking off just to note down any sentence preeminently beautiful?   (source)
    engage = arrange
  • I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise.   (source)
    engaged = hired
  • So, if you are not against it, I will write to my poor sister tomorrow, and make the proposal; and, as soon as matters are settled, I will engage to get the child to Mansfield; you shall have no trouble about it.   (source)
    engage = arrange
  • "I wished to engage Miss Crawford for the two first dances," was the explanation that followed, and brought Fanny to life again, enabling her, as she found she was expected to speak, to utter something like an inquiry as to the result.   (source)
    engage = book (get a promise from)
  • To engage her early for the two first dances was all the command of individual happiness which he felt in his power, and the only preparation for the ball which he could enter into, in spite of all that was passing around him on the subject, from morning till night.   (source)
    engage = occupy
  • "I have had the pleasure of seeing your sister dance, Mr. Price," said Henry Crawford, leaning forward, "and will engage to answer every inquiry which you can make on the subject, to your entire satisfaction."   (source)
    engage = promise
  • I have engaged for your seeing him whenever he calls, as you might have done had nothing of this sort occurred.   (source)
    engaged = arranged
  • In a few minutes Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged; and the "Yes, sir; to Mr. Crawford," was exactly what he had intended to hear.   (source)
    engaged = reserved or committed (to dance)
  • Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any engagements but in one quarter.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • Wear the necklace, as you are engaged to do, to-morrow evening, and let the chain, which was not ordered with any reference to the ball, be kept for commoner occasions.   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • "Yes," he answered, "she is engaged to me; but" (with a smile that did not sit easy) "she says it is to be the last time that she ever will dance with me."   (source)
    engaged = committed (to dance)
  • Sir Thomas engaged for its giving her very little trouble; and she assured him "that she was not at all afraid of the trouble; indeed, she could not imagine there would be any."   (source)
    engaged = arranged
  • Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared himself prevented by a prior engagement.   (source)
    engagement = promise to participate in an activity
  • He was going, and, if not voluntarily going, voluntarily intending to stay away; for, excepting what might be due to his uncle, his engagements were all self-imposed.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • The return of winter engagements, however, was not without its effect; and in the course of their progress, her mind became so pleasantly occupied in superintending the fortunes of her eldest niece, as tolerably to quiet her nerves.   (source)
  • The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to return for that purpose as soon as they could after dinner; and every one concerned was looking forward with eagerness.   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • ...we must secure to the child, or consider ourselves engaged to secure to her hereafter, as circumstances may arise, the provision of a gentlewoman, if no such establishment should offer as you are so sanguine in expecting.   (source)
  • ...she was happy in knowing herself admired; and she was happy in having the two dances with Edmund still to look forward to, during the greatest part of the evening, her hand being so eagerly sought after that her indefinite engagement with him was in continual perspective.   (source)
    engagement = commitment
  • Sir Thomas was as joyful as she could desire, and very kind and communicative; and she had so comfortable a talk with him about William as to make her feel as if nothing had occurred to vex her, till she found, towards the close, that Mr. Crawford was engaged to return and dine there that very day.   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • After dancing with each other at a proper number of balls, the young people justified these opinions, and an engagement, with a due reference to the absent Sir Thomas, was entered into, much to the satisfaction of their respective families, and of the general lookers-on of the neighbourhood, who had, for many weeks past, felt the expediency of Mr. Rushworth's marrying Miss Bertram.   (source)
    engagement = activity
  • To anything like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society, Henry Crawford had, unluckily, a great dislike: he could not accommodate his sister in an article of such importance; but he escorted her, with the utmost kindness, into Northamptonshire, and as readily engaged to fetch her away again, at half an hour's notice, whenever she were weary of the place.   (source)
    engaged = occupied himself
  • He had seen her eyes sparkle as she spoke of the dear friend's letter, which claimed a long visit from her in London, and of the kindness of Henry, in engaging to remain where he was till January, that he might convey her thither; he had heard her speak of the pleasure of such a journey with an animation which had "no" in every tone.   (source)
    engaging = promising or working
  • But though my uncle entered into my wishes with all the warmth I could desire, and exerted himself immediately, there were difficulties from the absence of one friend, and the engagements of another, which at last I could no longer bear to stay the end of, and knowing in what good hands I left the cause, I came away on Monday, trusting that many posts would not pass before I should be followed by such very letters as these.   (source)
    engagements = activities
  • …he was going away immediately, being to meet his uncle at Bath without delay; but if there were any prospect of a renewal of Lovers' Vows, he should hold himself positively engaged, he should break through every other claim, he should absolutely condition with his uncle for attending them whenever he might be wanted.   (source)
    engaged = committed
  • Simple as such an engagement might appear in other eyes, it had novelty and importance in hers, for excepting the day at Sotherton, she had scarcely ever dined out before; and though now going only half a mile, and only to three people, still it was dining out, and all the little interests of preparation were enjoyments in themselves.   (source)
    engagement = activity
  • An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family connexions; continual engagements among them; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to nothing worse than a tete-a-tete with the person one feels most agreeable in the world.   (source)
    engagements = activities
▲ show less (of above)

engaged as in:  engaged and then married

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • They knew each other for three years before they became engaged.
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • What I know about the engagement has come to me in bits and pieces, mostly from the stories Mother told.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • Instead I found out about your engagement to somebody else in the newspaper.   (source)
  • "Luis has bragged about the engagement to everyone," said Hortensia.   (source)
  • The flea market was where you sipped green tea with almond kolchas, and learned whose daughter had broken off an engagement and run off with her American boyfriend, ...   (source)
  • Even after Kira and I got engaged, I think Jim still harbored some fantasy of stealing her away from me.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • People buying jewelry were always happy, and even though Welch was a poor town, Becker's Jewel Box had plenty of customers: older miners buying their wives a mother's pin, a brooch with a birthstone for each of her children; teenage couples shopping for engagement rings, the girl giggling with excitement, the boy acting proud and manly.   (source)
    engagement = related to a promise to marry
  • In critical ways, she was engaged to a stranger.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Yet less than two years after Mrs. Leep left him, Leon surprised everyone by getting engaged to a woman he met at a celebrity pro-am golf tournament.   (source)
    engaged = entered into an agreement to marry
  • … the engagement was announced in the newspaper, the wedding gown, the shower …   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
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show 66 more with this conextual meaning
  • The week after the engagement had taken place I was packed off to have lunch with Richard's sister, Winifred Griffen Prior.   (source)
  • We were engaged for two years.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • I'm not sure what this meant in Jackson at the time—whether they were preparing for an engagement or just passing the time together.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • Mrs. Dawes's opposition to the engagement was rendered moot by the subsequent elopement of Simon and Serena.   (source)
  • With any luck, by the New Year we will be celebrating the engagement of our beloved Prince Maxon to an enchanting, talented, and intelligent Daughter of Illea!   (source)
  • He evidently remembered he was engaged to me, for he ran back out and kissed me swiftly in front of Jem.   (source)
    engaged = formally promised to be married
  • Are they husband and wife, are they divorced, engaged, what?   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Bep's engaged! ... but Bep doesn't love him, and to me that's enough reason to advise her against marrying him.   (source)
  • We shall host a party to announce the engagement.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • Burnham immediately went to Margaret's father to break the engagement, on grounds the courtship could not continue in the shadow of scandal.   (source)
  • William Smith's interest in Nabby, and hers in him, had been apparent for months, but only after Nabby had formally broken her engagement to Royall Tyler would Abigail permit any mention of the new "connection."   (source)
  • Was he engaged-married?   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged.   (source)
  • I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; but Mrs. Lynde says he isn't married, or even engaged, because she made special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to have a young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the congregation and that would make trouble.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to get married
  • You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Advantageous as would be the alliance, and long standing and public as was the engagement, her happiness must not be sacrificed to it.   (source)
    engagement = promise to marry
  • When she turned twenty-one, he sent her his pay and asked her to find an engagement ring.   (source)
    engagement = related to a promise to marry
  • He handed Dodge the soggy newspaper detailing Alyss' upcoming engagement party.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • Then an engagement period would have followed which would have lasted a few months.   (source)
  • They got engaged a few years after the launch of the OASIS.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • So she wrote him a letter, and now she's engaged.   (source)
  • Engaged to marry D. Denton Deere (also an heir).   (source)
  • Mother never told us that her family had opposed the engagement but we knew.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • DAD WAS STILL BEDRIDDEN when Shawn and Emily announced their engagement.   (source)
  • She'd been wondering if he would show up today as mysteriously as he had at her engagement party.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • Angela twisted the engagement ring her mother made her wear in spite of the rash.   (source)
  • He lost his temper and abruptly said that maybe they should call off the engagement.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • She had returned the engagement ring to Denton Deere; she had not seen him since Crow's wedding.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • First, the engagement announcement of Angela Wexler to D. Denton Deere.   (source)
  • You left your engagement ring on the sink again.   (source)
  • There went with the house the usual legend about the Yankees: one Finch female, recently engaged, donned her complete trousseau to save it from raiders in the neighborhood; she became stuck in the door to the Daughters' Staircase but was doused with water and finally pushed through.   (source)
    engaged = entered into an agreement to marry
  • Kya turned the page to continue the story, and there loomed a large picture of Chase and a girl above an engagement announcement: Andrews-Stone.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • You did know I was engaged, right?   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Darlene had worked as a barmaid in a number of local saloons and was engaged to the owner of a successful club on the southside.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to get married
  • Red was not for engagement teas.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • I will announce the engagement at once.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • The disease rapidly gained ground, but Root remained committed to the engagement, even though it was clear to everyone he was marrying a dead woman.   (source)
  • While saying this, she examined me with interest and a certain chilly amusement, to see how I would take it — this reduction of my engagement ring to a minor errand.   (source)
    engagement = related to a promise to marry
  • BECAUSE SORAYA AND I never had an engagement period, much of what I learned about the Taheris I learned after I married into their family.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • But when the New York Daily News reported that the couple had become engaged, Dawes's mother—the formidable Theodora Cabot Dawes—telegraphed a haughty one-word comment that was blown up into headlines: SON ENGAGED?   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • But in her twenty-second year, more than a year after Chase and Pearl announced their engagement, she walked the sandy lane, blistering with heat, to the mailbox every day and looked inside.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • I kept my pristine engagement ring folded into my cotton-gloved fist, aware that, worn with clothes like mine, it must look like a rhinestone, or else like something I'd stolen.   (source)
    engagement = related to a promise to marry
  • Likely, the man at the engagement party had just been a rival of Leopold's and wanted to show him up with his dancing.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • ACCORDING TO TRADITION, Soraya's family would have thrown the engagement party the Shirini-khori—or "Eating of the Sweets" ceremony.   (source)
  • They were engaged soon after.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • The most prominent members of British society were on hand for her engagement party--dukes, duchesses, knights, earls, counts, viscounts, and country squires-and all of them hid their faces behind masks, as did Alice.   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • Westing connection: Engaged to Angela Wexler (see Wexlers), who looks like Sam Westing's daughter, Violet, who was also engaged to be married, but to a politician, not an intern.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • "Angela, where's your engagement ring?"   (source)
    engagement = related to an agreement to marry
  • We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan.   (source)
  • When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man.   (source)
  • An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged.   (source)
    engaged = committed to marry
  • All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.   (source)
  • And Susan said, 'Yes—no—I don't know—let me see'—and there they were, engaged as quick as that.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious, especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring.   (source)
    engagement = agreement to marry
  • She had a debut after the Armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans.   (source)
    engaged = in an agreement to marry
  • We heard that you were engaged.   (source)
  • And besides, Miss Bertram is engaged.   (source)
  • "If Miss Bertram were not engaged," said Fanny cautiously, "I could sometimes almost think that he admired her more than Julia."   (source)
  • A woman married only six months ago; a man professing himself devoted, even engaged to another; that other her near relation; the whole family, both families connected as they were by tie upon tie; all friends, all intimate together!   (source)
  • He was released from the engagement to be mortified and unhappy, till some other pretty girl could attract him into matrimony again, and...   (source)
    engagement = promise to marry
  • Miss Bertram's engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with.   (source)
  • She thanked him for his great attention, his paternal kindness, but he was quite mistaken in supposing she had the smallest desire of breaking through her engagement, or was sensible of any change of opinion or inclination since her forming it.   (source)
  • Julia did seem inclined to admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution and delicacy—but that could not extend to her—she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint, and leaving her less occasion than Julia to consult either father or mother.   (source)
  • The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the immediate discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with the warmest satisfaction, as so particularly desirable for her in the intimacy which he saw with so much pleasure established, it was a silent walk; for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any other.   (source)
  • Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed to the repeated details of his day's sport, good or bad, his boast of his dogs, his jealousy of his neighbours, his doubts of their qualifications, and his zeal after poachers, subjects which will not find their way to female feelings without some talent on one side or some attachment on the other, had missed Mr. Crawford grievously; and Julia, unengaged and unemployed, felt all the right of missing him much more.   (source)
    unengaged = not in an agreement to marry
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unengaged means not and reverses the meaning of engaged. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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engage as in:  engage the enemy

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • We will engage the enemy when they reach the river.
    engage = begin fighting
  • Both had recommended reforms to the rules of engagement, particularly concerning the use of deadly force.   (source)
    engagement = battle
  • He'd seen a distant Zero at Wake, but had never been engaged by one.   (source)
    engaged = attacked
  • She could have turned and fled, but her mind was geared toward engagement, and by the time Edgar rolled onto his side, she towered over him.   (source)
    engagement = battle
  • He decides to walk in the opposite direction from them, reasoning that the Russians are probably heading to engage with the Germans, so getting as far away as possible makes sense.   (source)
    engage = begin fighting
  • It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.   (source)
    engaged = fought
  • If he crosses paths with Redd, he'll try to engage with her.   (source)
    engage = begin fighting
  • An AC-130 gunship thousands of feet overhead engaged the enemy that could be positively identified by their weapon fire.   (source)
    engaged = attacked
  • … he thought it his duty, therefore, to avoid fighting, especially with an unequal force, if he could, but if he could not avoid an engagement, he would give them something that should make them remember him.   (source)
    engagement = battle
  • Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak.   (source)
    engage = begin fighting
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show 18 more with this conextual meaning
  • With such means in his power he had a right to be listened to; and though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls of thread or a second-hand shirt button, in the midst of her nephew's account of a shipwreck or an engagement, everybody else was attentive;   (source)
    engagement = battle
  • They were the self-proclaimed saviors of the queendom; they should have been engaging Redd in battle, not talking about it.   (source)
    engaging = fighting
  • No Japanese planes or guns engaged him.   (source)
    engaged = attacked
  • Measured by the numbers of troops involved, these were small engagements, but the effect on American spirits could hardly have been greater, and just when all seemed lost.   (source)
    engagements = battles
  • But without being able to positively identify whether they were women, children, or armed males, "our air assets could not engage them," says Matt Mason.   (source)
    engage = attack
  • Attention shifted to naval engagements between the French and British in the West Indies and to British forays into the South, where, in the spring of 1779, the Americans were defeated at Briar Creek, Georgia.   (source)
    engagements = battles
  • No one else but members of Adam's team had the skill, fortitude, or audacity to infiltrate this area undetected and engage the enemy in their own backyard.   (source)
    engage = fight
  • By the second week of March, as Adams was preparing to leave for Quincy, word reached Philadelphia that the American frigate Constellation, under Captain Thomas Truxtun, had captured the French frigate L'Insurgent, after a battle near the island of Nevis in the Leewards, the first major engagement of the undeclared war at sea.   (source)
    engagement = battle
  • They're taught to enter the room exactly as we say, clear their lanes as we've instructed, and if there's a target they engage it or they handle it if it's a noncombatant.   (source)
    engage = attack
  • Considering the location and the fact that Adam was a Naval Special Warfare sniper who had consistently hit targets a mile away, should an opportunity arise, say, across the river, he could engage the target from a lofty crag, camouflaged within the dark shadow of a rock overhang.   (source)
  • There's one or two guys looking to see if you went down the wall far enough, there's a guy looking at your finger—when it's on the trigger, when it's off—a guy's watching your fields of fire, someone else is watching your eyes, or in Adam's case, eye, assuring that the scenario is being processed, another guy's got a stopwatch, and you've got seconds, split seconds, to engage the right targets.   (source)
  • It all happened real fast; this guy was firing at us, we engaged, there was motion to the right, and Adam spun around but didn't fire.   (source)
    engaged = attacked
  • An AC-130 gunship engaged the enemy position, but the fighters were well entrenched in the structure and close air support had little effect.   (source)
  • I thank those who have selflessly pulled themselves off the line to train the next warriors to go forward—so that they may surpass the prowess of those currently engaged.   (source)
    engaged = fighting
  • On one particular assault, "we'd dropped two guys that were directly engaging us, and there was a third guy winging bullets in our general direction," Heath says.   (source)
    engaging = attacking
  • Special Warfare Operator First Class (Sea, Air, and Land) Brown maneuvered under intense enemy fire with his assault team and engaged the insurgents at close range with accurate small arms fire and grenades.   (source)
    engaged = attacked
  • ...and the posthumously presented Silver Star for Chief Brown's actions as part of an assault force that executed a daring raid deep into mountainous enemy-occupied terrain in northeastern Afghanistan… while numerous enemy fighters simultaneously engaged the force from the surrounding mountains….   (source)
  • Without concern for his own well-being, and with sword glinting, he slashed his way through Redd's soldiers, who looked like ordinary playing cards (albeit larger) when unengaged, but who now fanned out as if the hand of a giant poker player was spreading them across the green baize of a gaming table.   (source)
    unengaged = not fighting
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unengaged means not and reverses this meaning of engaged. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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engage as in:  engage the gears

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • I pulled the lever to engage the gears.
    engage = put to work
  • There, resting on a mound of blanket rolls, is a silver sheath of arrows and a bow, already strung, just waiting to be engaged.   (source)
  • Once the lockout was engaged, you couldn't disable it for two months.   (source)
  • The float rose in the sump pit twice an hour and the lights flickered as the motor engaged.   (source)
    engaged = began working
  • New gears engaged, and the claw transported the box to the far side of the vault, coming to a stop over a stationary conveyor belt.   (source)
    engaged = moved into position to work
  • The engineer in the pit released the brake and engaged the drive gears.   (source)
  • "Li-li-light speed engaged, Captain," Max reported.   (source)
    engaged = put to work
  • Finally, it stopped, and the machine engaged.   (source)
    engaged = began working
  • Daito's log-out sequence had been engaged at the worst possible moment.   (source)
    engaged = put to work
  • Its cloaking device was still engaged and its shields were up.   (source)
    engaged = working
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show 15 more with this conextual meaning
  • The freezer compressor ticked and engaged and murmured a low electric throb; the blower sighed warm air across his stockinged foot as he passed the register.   (source)
    engaged = began working
  • I engaged the Vonnegut's autopilot, then activated my Ring of Teleportation by speaking the command word, "Brundell."   (source)
    engaged = put to work
  • And thanks be to Crom, the Vonnegut was still parked right where I'd left it, its cloaking device still engaged.   (source)
    engaged = working
  • My ship's cloaking device was already engaged, and I left it activated when I set the Vonnegut down on one of the Tyrell Building's landing pads.   (source)
    engaged = put to work
  • With my cloaking device engaged, I selected the nearest instance of the city and landed the Vonnegut just outside the wall of its dome, watching my scopes for other ships.   (source)
  • I'd always associated belief in heaven with, frankly, a kind of intellectual disengagement.   (source)
    disengagement = the act of move something out of an interacting position
    standard prefix: The prefix "dis-" in disengagement means not or opposite. It reverses the meaning of engagement as seen in words like disagree, disconnect, and disappear.
  • Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me.   (source)
    disengaged = untangled from his previous position
    standard prefix: The prefix "dis-" in disengaged means not or opposite. It reverses the meaning of engaged as seen in words like disagree, disconnect, and disappear.
  • "What's your name?" he said, coming over and disengaging the rabbit from the snare.   (source)
    disengaging = removing
    standard prefix: The prefix "dis-" in disengaging means not or opposite. It reverses the meaning of engaging as seen in words like disagree, disconnect, and disappear.
  • At exactly one minute to noon, one of the Supply Droids, designation SD-03, powered itself on and disengaged from its charging dock.   (source)
    disengaged = separated
  • Andy's encounter with the falling rock was very much on my mind every time I unclipped from the line to move around somebody even a small projectile would be enough to send me to the bottom of the face if it struck while I was disengaged from the rope.   (source)
    disengaged = not connected
  • Red in the face, he tried to disengage himself from her embrace.   (source)
    disengage = separate
    standard prefix: The prefix "dis-" in disengage means not or opposite. It reverses the meaning of engage as seen in words like disagree, disconnect, and disappear.
  • She made no response whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself.   (source)
  • Horror, horror, horror … he tried to disengage himself; but Lenina tightened her embrace.   (source)
  • Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm.   (source)
    disengaged = untangled
  • He started forward to take her in his arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly, partly because she was still holding the tool-bag.   (source)
    disengaged = separated
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • My marriage started out with a big, fat lie: I told my parents that Francois's family was happy about our engagement.†   (source)
  • Because it can allow humans to escape gravity and engage in space construction at a much larger scale.†   (source)
  • But there was no similar expertise for dealing with cyberweapons, and no rules of engagement had been clearly expressed.†   (source)
  • But the Count took particular pleasure in his friend's engagement during the final minutes of the film.†   (source)
  • Unfashionable as it might be to suggest it, I felt that we were engaged in a spiritual battle.†   (source)
  • I have fought battles I should not have engaged in, and walked away from causes that needed and deserved a champion.†   (source)
  • I felt I was dealing fate a serious blow by engaging such a handsome adversary.†   (source)
  • The spirits of those who had perished at the pier were all around, engaged with one another, eating and drinking and talking.†   (source)
  • There was never a time when I spoke to her that I didn't still feel like I was engaged in some kind of interview.†   (source)
  • Babi said they would hold birthday parties at the restaurant, engagement ceremonies, New Year's get-togethers.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • But wasn't she engaged to Roger Garthing?†   (source)
  • At the time I was engaged to somebody else, and in no position to fall in love.†   (source)
  • Engage the enemy!†   (source)
  • Chuck looked ahead at the engaged battle.†   (source)
  • More engaged.†   (source)
  • I saw two young men engaged in an argument.†   (source)
  • He attempted to engage Hermione in conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.†   (source)
  • The first man carries the tray to his station, sets an engagement ring in his vise, and peels back the prongs with tweezers.†   (source)
  • He was not profusely thankful and there was that silence about him, that bearded, gruff, and giant silence, that unwillingness to engage the protocols of island life.†   (source)
  • According to the consultant, Mrs. Grace V. Mirman, the challenge for the parents of someone "highly gifted" was to find ways to keep the child engaged and stimulated.†   (source)
  • Or second, and even better, if we all, as a society, decide that this is behavior we'd rather not engage in, the fact that everyone knows, or has the power to know who's doing it, this would prevent the behavior from being engaged in.†   (source)
  • Across the top of the flyer writ in big black letters were the words LIMITED ENGAGEMENT, then in little letters it said, —Direct from an S.R.O. engagement in New York City.†   (source)
  • My mother's engagement picture, as printed in the Rochester Post-Bulletin, which I had seen over and over.†   (source)
  • The poolroom was adjacent to the main part of the club, four tables that were already engaged in various stages of play.†   (source)
  • She simply had a lovely voice, and she was engaged—in her entirely unrebellious, even timid way—in training it.†   (source)
  • I was to stimulate her with questions, engage her with stories, read to her, go to museums, puppet shows, galleries.†   (source)
  • If my fifteen-second engagement to Stuart is what spurred Mother's will to live, the fact that I'm single again fueled her strength even more.†   (source)
  • They appeared to be engaged in polite conversation, and Nehemia's guards stood to the side of the dais, already looking bored.†   (source)
  • It's just really hard to focus on the here and now and be engaged in conversation when that's the only thing on my mind.†   (source)
  • Lacking any pressing engagements, I picked up the clay soldier and walked over.†   (source)
  • He is not to engage the northerners until we arrive, but I want him to harass their flanks and draw them farther south.†   (source)
  • I have his arrows now, a loaded bow, and Finnick at my back, breathing hard but not actively engaged.†   (source)
  • It brought back another memory, the memory of Lise so long ago, wearing the yellow dress, dancing with Peter on the night that they announced their engagement.†   (source)
  • She's engaged," he finally whispered, and then was silent for hours, his rocker making the only noise.†   (source)
  • You mean engaged to a stranger?†   (source)
  • Nor, apparently, was the ground a safer place to have remained, for there Kate was engaged in a furious struggle.†   (source)
  • All through it were rolling hills that gave me a chance to practice engaging the clutch and working the emergency brake.†   (source)
  • There was such friendliness and charm in his eyes, such boyish eagerness to engage her, that she could only go along.†   (source)
  • I'm engaging in hyperbole.†   (source)
  • Instead it had been indiscriminately promiscuous, had not pair-bonded, and had spent most of its waking life, when it wasn't eating, engaged in copulation.†   (source)
  • Part of her felt an enormous joy at seeing him, but another part felt terrible at having to call off their engagement.†   (source)
  • It is Friday night, payday, and the one night of the week the two men engage in a ritual of talk and drink.†   (source)
  • It was what Lindsey, in her workouts, called an active rest; my muscles were still engaged but my focus relaxed.†   (source)
  • I speak, of course, of the alliance discussions my mistress has been engaged in with Emperor Rikan.†   (source)
  • Engage or wait?†   (source)
  • Arthur's companion seemed sunk in his own thoughts, and when Arthur tried on a couple of occasions to engage him in conversation again he would simply reply by asking if he was comfortable enough, and then left it at that.†   (source)
  • Champagne was being passed around, and Maxon was celebrating our engagement prematurely with a bottle he'd kept all to himself.†   (source)
  • Jonesy and DeNice were engaged.†   (source)
  • The human was trying to engage a troll in macho repartee!†   (source)
  • He decides not to engage.†   (source)
  • "Yes, but he ate three waffles yesterday," said Toddy, looking eagerly between his uninterested parents in an attempt to engage them.†   (source)
  • This morning Miep told us about her cousin's engagement party, which she went to on Saturday.†   (source)
  • Year in, year out, as far back as history is recorded, farmers from across Asia have engaged in the same relentless, intricate pattern of agriculture.†   (source)
  • Outside the church after dinner, many migrants engage in a crude kind of street therapy: Who has endured the worst riding the trains?†   (source)
  • Groups of regulators—both volunteer citizens and the actual regulators employed by the government—patrol the streets every night, looking for uncureds breaking curfew, checking the streets and (if the curtains are open) houses for unapproved activity, like two uncureds touching each other, or walking together after dark—or even two cureds engaging in "activity that might signal the re-emergence of the deliria after the procedure," like too much hugging and kissing.†   (source)
  • After she reads my chart and talks to the nurses, she goes back downstairs to my family, who have stopped talking in hushed tones and are now all engaged in solitary activities.†   (source)
  • Even during the best of times, we always knew what a difficult battle we were engaged in.†   (source)
  • But she began to find him alarming: He talked as if they were engaged, he knew the number and gender of their children.†   (source)
  • As of now, Orik, you are removed from active service and forbidden to engage in any military activities under my command.†   (source)
  • I'll put it this way-we're officially engaged.†   (source)
  • Freak the Griffin was diving through the air, engaging the winged flaming snakes, the uraei, in aerial combat.†   (source)
  • My feet engage the pedals and I pump away.†   (source)
  • Later still he put together a number of East Los Angeles study groups engaged in revolutionary theory.†   (source)
  • "Speaking of time," said Jesus, turning and pointing at the path that led into the forest at the end of the clearing, "you have an engagement.†   (source)
  • As we walked, he engaged us in conversation.†   (source)
  • They were too loud, had too much power for the little house chores he was engaged in—resetting table legs; glazing.†   (source)
  • No return engagements.†   (source)
  • I have an engagement with a lady, and I doubt our rounds will bring us to this side of town tonight.†   (source)
  • My first engagement was a banquet given by an American colonel to honor the new governor of Kyoto Prefecture.†   (source)
  • People engaged in the most fantastic suppositions, and instead of feeling calmer they were twice as anxious as before.†   (source)
  • The only thing, Minerva adds, real breezy and smart the way she can be so cool, is the poor man's already engaged to somebody else.†   (source)
  • The wedding was planned for summer in New Jersey, an engagement party thrown, a few gifts already received.†   (source)
  • But when she tried to engage him in conversation he seemed uninterested, taking my hand and backing away, his gestures saying, "Thanks, but no thanks."†   (source)
  • At the same time, there was another part of me that was utterly engaged in the theater of the moment.†   (source)
  • What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text.†   (source)
  • As a psychiatrist working for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department, she says it's not her place to engage in a public debate about competing philosophies on how to treat mental illness.†   (source)
  • Pastor Butcher was a short, bald, lively preacher—energetic and engaging, not dull and dry the way kids sometimes expect an older pastor to be.†   (source)
  • A unit might be very focused on what it was doing at that particular moment, but it was no more apart from "me" than my hand is while it's engaged in a task that doesn't require my full attention.†   (source)
  • Dee pushed the door, but the electric locks had engaged.†   (source)
  • I thought you had another engagement tonight.†   (source)
  • If there was one subject which engaged her energies even more completely than modern clothing it was spoiled food.†   (source)
  • Although twice wounded, he continued to pull security and engage a superior enemy force from his vehicle.†   (source)
  • As long as you're sitting out there pretending to be engaged to somebody, you might as well pass the time.†   (source)
  • Jack's on the other hand, was calm, as if he had been reading a rather dull book instead of engaging in foreplay with his wife.†   (source)
  • OVERHEAD, THE HELICOPTER WAS ENGAGED IN ITS roaring flutter.†   (source)
  • We'd engaged a bunch of insurgents, killing quite a few, and were waiting through a lull in the action.†   (source)
  • After breaking off his engagement in 1841, Kierkegaard went to Berlin where he attended Schelling's lectures.†   (source)
  • ...You do not engage the attention of the reader unless your story has basic human interest elements.†   (source)
  • She glanced over at Simon, who appeared to have succeeded in engaging Isabelle in conversation.†   (source)
  • Back when Bubba was starting, he'd engaged in this tribal chest-pounding ritual with certain opponents.†   (source)
  • We do that by dialing this selector, which engages one of ten electrical resistors of increasing value.†   (source)
  • They would engage in some serious talk about my situation and spare the rest of us from all the legal unpleasantries.†   (source)
  • "It has not yet left the pier," Hiro says, "so you can cancel that engagement, using one of the excuses you have just given me, and then I will pay you more money."†   (source)
  • Maybe she's engaged to that boy.†   (source)
  • Our rules of engagement in Afghanistan specified that we could not shoot, kill, or injure unarmed civilians.†   (source)
  • "Fighters on both sides engaged in cannibalism, ripping out hearts and eating them," wrote Martin Meredith in his book The Fate of Africa.†   (source)
  • In any case, the details of the engagement were settled in their letters during the weeks that followed.†   (source)
  • We asked them what movies they'd seen and how they'd done on their exams and when they were getting married (most of them had sadly small engagement rings).†   (source)
  • If we should decide to engage you to unravel the truth in the Wennerström affair...how much chance is there that you'd find out anything?†   (source)
  • It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged a room at the asylum on pretense, simply as a joke.†   (source)
  • No matter what was going on, he was always engaging and enjoyable to speak with, and yet somehow he was able to balance that by being totally focused on championships.†   (source)
  • "My father couldn't be too heartbroken if he had time to go out and buy a new car," Jane said, "and to outfit you in a new uniform ...I'll warrant, he hasn't missed a single party since I've been gone, hasn't turned down a single social engagement!"†   (source)
  • "And is it true," Elaine Murphy continued, "that you were part of a Special Forces unit engaged in top secret duty?†   (source)
  • During their phone meeting, Ruth reviewed the chapter that presented the Five Don'ts and Ten Do's of becoming a more engaged parent.†   (source)
  • "If Jules's parents are in the diamond business, I bet they know a lot about choosing the perfect engagement ring," Vee said.†   (source)
  • The most horrifying crime he committed occurred at a local pub. The victims were posed in various places throughout the bar—some standing, some sitting, and some engaged in a kind of revelry on the dance floor.†   (source)
  • The crowd across from us was likewise engaged in searching the skies.†   (source)
  • Not married, not engaged, and with no attachments that she could ascertain.†   (source)
  • My nun said something to them and soon all four of us were charmingly engaged in a childlike dialogue.†   (source)
  • Next some etchings from the Bizarie by Giovan-batista Bracelli, depicting a set of curious toys, humanlike robots engaged in various alchemical rites.†   (source)
  • Hook engaged, the chain jerks you forward.†   (source)
  • It simply spins without engaging.†   (source)
  • Monfort argued that the proposed acquisition would allow Excel to engage in predatory pricing and to reduce competition.†   (source)
  • He made a note in his engagement book, then took out his billfold, picked up the check and gave a ten-dollar bill to the waiter.†   (source)
  • After lunch, she removed her diamond engagement ring and her wedding band and locked them in her desk drawer.†   (source)
  • Probably that vamp teenagers were hanging out in gangs, engaging in all sorts of sinful juvenile delinquent behavior.†   (source)
  • I realized I was engaged in the kind of reflection, the kind of study of the world, which I so admired in Ghosh.†   (source)
  • Never mind the security problems, never mind the fact that she'd be able to do far fewer engagements ...†   (source)
  • She was sitting, contentedly engaged in this particular activity, when a slow dark movement along the baseboard caught her eye.†   (source)
  • Wendle and I almost never go out, but we had a long-standing engagement, and Wendle didn't think we ought to break it.†   (source)
  • She and Chris held hands all through dinner, which was somewhat disgusting but a bit tolerable, considering the newness of their engaged status.†   (source)
  • After a long moment, he knelt by Buttercup's chair and, in his gentlest voice, started to speak: "I admit that when we first became engaged, there was to be no love involved.†   (source)
  • We are secretly engaged.†   (source)
  • He's Jewish and conventionally handsome with brown hair and green-blue eyes-bright, affable, and engaging.†   (source)
  • Gustavo and I were never engaged.†   (source)
  • He was extremely conservative in his choice of targets, so conservative that he often spent a whole engagement sighting at people but never pulling the trigger.†   (source)
  • Tell him, just as you have told me, how long you and John have been engaged, and how devoted she was to you before she came down to the mill.†   (source)
  • Like, say, tell our folks, 'Mom, Judy and me got engaged today.'†   (source)
  • This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.†   (source)
  • Marlena's no pushover, plus she was practically engaged at the time.†   (source)
  • Presently he was "much hurried and engaged in arranging and making new dispositions of our forces," he said.†   (source)
  • But the day after their engagement, she's diagnosed with leukemia.†   (source)
  • His mistress, who had a flexible schedule, accompanied him on all speaking engagements, real and imagined.†   (source)
  • He found himself engaged again, word for word, gesture for gesture, in the argument with his daughter with which this tale begun.†   (source)
  • A few minutes later the messenger returned, gave the old man a grunt, and—cautiously, feeling ahead of himself with his crooked bare toes like a man engaged in some strange, pious dance, the foolish smile still fixed on his face—the blind old man went in.†   (source)
  • They also engaged the best seamstresses to make the floating graduating dresses and to cut down secondhand pants which would be pressed to a military slickness for the important event.†   (source)
  • Farmer, Hiatt seemed to say, should be solely engaged in the battle against those scourges, and at a level commensurate with their size.†   (source)
  • Ellie and Arthur had married, and Mr. Pernick shyly confided, "I'm pleased to say I'm engaged, Miss Pritchard, to a charming woman who is particularly knowledgeable about the migrating habits of the Motacilla trochilus."†   (source)
  • His best chance of doing so is to engage the public's emotions, for emotion is the enemy of rational argument.†   (source)
  • It did not mean so much to have a father in the state legislature and a sister who was engaged to a champion skier.†   (source)
  • I like to go to sleep listening to them, unless it is Saturday night, when their fiddling is often interrupted by young men in leather chaps and no shirts engaged in a slap fight.†   (source)
  • The critics had called the result "engaging" and "good, spooky fun," except for the ones who'd deemed it "preposterous" and "convoluted."†   (source)
  • Girls who engaged in these activities soon earned themselves a special name—flappers—so-called because they were like baby birds, "flapping" the wings of their independence for the first time.†   (source)
  • They engaged in quiet conversation, giving an occasional nod to an older student or an inquisitive glance at the new arrivals.†   (source)
  • Moody engaged Hormoz in a discussion of one of his favorite subjects the duplicity of the American government.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Cross has insisted that Pippa be buried with her sapphire engagement ring, which, no doubt, pains Mr. Bumble greatly.†   (source)
  • Rosemarie was engaged to a sweet, quiet guy who visited her faithfully every week, and she was obsessed with wedding planning.†   (source)
  • Kathy was a woman who hoped to satisfy her own vague artistic aspirations through an association with someone engaged in the act of creating.†   (source)
  • He had tried to quit smoking so many times; father and son had engaged in long, heartfelt conversations about the smoking.†   (source)
  • Girls never want to know anything but gossip and rot about people getting engaged.†   (source)
  • I also told them to engage a staff of servants whom I was prepared to pay very liberally — so long as they keep their mouths shut, I thought — provided that they are discreet, I wrote.†   (source)
  • At the same time, at home, Bobby Kennedy is engaged in a completely different power struggle, one best epitomized by an incident that happened seven years ago.†   (source)
  • Jake Gaither was engaged to Tiffany.†   (source)
  • But he did not engage the jackdaws and Hazel saw him pick up another carrot and start back with it.†   (source)
  • After all, we're supposed to be sneaking in to search for Pandora's Box—not engaging in a conflict.†   (source)
  • I thought you might be engaged or married and Lord, what a job it was going to be, getting you away from her.†   (source)
  • As well, these simple tasks engaged only the hands and left the mind free to wander unfettered down all manner of interesting pathways.†   (source)
  • "Wasn't my nephew Jem," he said slowly, "engaged to marry his great-uncle's son's wife's second cousin?"†   (source)
  • The fact that she refused to engage him with more than a grunt convinced him he would have to hurt her soon.†   (source)
  • "I later learned that some men were waiting in a car outside Jack's house to take him to a speaking engagement," Betty said.†   (source)
  • Ignatius considered engaging her in conversation, toying with her until the moment of her demise, but there was no time.†   (source)
  • I'm not in the habit of making engagements in the middle of the night.†   (source)
  • He resolved that, should the people of Korphe engage in a tug of war for his wealth, such as it was, he would be more patient.†   (source)
  • Tristas, who's been engaged to his childhood sweetheart since he was seventeen, who helped me understand Helene, who has four sisters who adore him.†   (source)
  • The war between the two camps has blazed up with particular belligerence in our times, as language issues engaged social conservatives and liberals and became a factor in the so-called culture wars.†   (source)
  • It was pretty embarrassing to need Mom's help in fending off my little brother (and I seriously doubt that I'll be engaging in any more tangles like that with him real soon).†   (source)
  • How could anything that called itself the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" engage in wholesale murder?†   (source)
  • "Shoot," retorted Aunt Loma, "what about that rancher out in Texas she was engaged to before she came here?†   (source)
  • Phaedrus listens with deep engagement.†   (source)
  • I considered myself beyond the stage of street-fighting, and one of the worst things I could do upon returning to the community was to engage in a brawl.†   (source)
  • I repeat, if you have a first or second name, or the type of business the firm's engaged in, I might be of further help.†   (source)
  • They were acting peacefully and, the courts have decided, were not in any way engaging in piracy.†   (source)
  • Like many other Chicagoans, especially those with strong economic interests in the city, White would steadfastly refuse to believe that a significant number of people had panicked, rioted, or engaged in any sort of criminal acts.†   (source)
  • A fourth group was engaged in preliminary design of a machine that would carry out all human functions and would be self-duplicating.†   (source)
  • Both the ANC and the government were engaged in creating a climate whereby negotiations would succeed.†   (source)
  • Cesar warned them that the president was a very busy man and would not likely spend much time with them or engage them in any conversation.†   (source)
  • At fifteen, Granny and Grampa engaged her to Tuelo Malunga, a boy from the neighboring cattle post; but Mama was scared of him, and ran off with Papa instead.†   (source)
  • Atbroughly the same time that Woolf started his potentially deadly gam-le, Pollard engaged in a gamble of his own.†   (source)
  • Once Bon Marche engagement was over, I got hold of self and found a phone.†   (source)
  • His projects conduct electricity, engage motion with toothed wheels, react in concert with universal laws of physics.†   (source)
  • One of the pirates always sat on top of the covered area keeping watch; engaging him would be simple.†   (source)
  • Their father himself was handsome and imposing, he spoke well, he was engaging, he was obviously a man of great resources.†   (source)
  • A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate.†   (source)
  • You couldn't engage in self-pity, but rather had to do whatever you could to get out of bad circumstances, no matter how young.†   (source)
  • Philip looked away, then raised his eyes and held Rearden's glance, as if engaged in a scrutiny of his own.†   (source)
  • Man is a great enough creature and a great enough enigma to deserve both our pride and our compassion, and engage our fullest sense of mystery.†   (source)
  • I rarely saw him, and when I did he was usually talking to someone else or engaged in important tasks.†   (source)
  • Men engage in a peaceful, intellectual pastime, and along comes a beautiful woman and spoils everything.†   (source)
  • It was hard to summon the energy to engage with students all day, let alone get through his nearly hour-long commute.†   (source)
  • Though, honestly, if she turned twenty-five and she still wasn't engaged, she saw no point in saving it.†   (source)
  • Your twin-brother up there engages my thoughts.†   (source)
  • Somehow she brought her parents round to the idea, and the engagement was formally recognized.†   (source)
  • For the most part the men seemed to be engaged in swaggering around, talking in loud voices, and clapping one another on the back.†   (source)
  • Well, you know you said Robbie didn't know he was engaged, but Lindsay goes round with an engagement ring on ...?†   (source)
  • What the Taoiseach and I seek is a new dimension to our relationships — a real partnership between governments and peoples, which will engage our societies at every level.†   (source)
  • One of the verbeeg noticed the dark elf, too, and it jumped out of its fight with the barbarian to engage this new foe.†   (source)
  • It was probably a groundskeeper's vehicle, either coming to investigate the gunfire or engaged in routine maintenance.†   (source)
  • "Can you at least tell everyone your name?" she finally asks, obviously not one to engage in a battle of wills.†   (source)
  • The rules of engagement are clear and have been ever since men first took up arms against each other.†   (source)
  • On the other wall there was a mural showing Homer, Dante, Tolstoi, Balzac, and Shakespeare engaged in conversation.†   (source)
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