All 37 Uses of

engage

in

Great Expectations

I'll engage there's no Tar in that:" so, the sergeant thanked him and said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it was equally convenient.†
Chpt 5

The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade engaged his attention.†
Chpt 8

The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg—in a very odd way, as it struck me.†
Chpt 10

Whether myrmidons of Justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate;—whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:—whether suborned boys—a numerous band of mercenaries—might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more;—it was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him accessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy wit†
Chpt 12

In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.†
Chpt 12

Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but said not another word.†
Chpt 18 *

disengaged = not interacting or having interest; or stopped interacting or having interest

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.

Engaged.†
Chpt 22

He laid down the carving-knife and fork,—being engaged in carving, at the moment,—put his two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it.†
Chpt 23

It happened that the other five children were left behind at the dinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and their not being anybody else's business.†
Chpt 23

I was pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,—not to say for other waters,—I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my new allies.†
Chpt 23

In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something between a publican and a rat-catcher—a large pale, puffed, swollen man—was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers.†
Chpt 24

In the room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt me anything I pleased,—and who was in an excessive white-perspiration, as if he had been trying his art on himself.†
Chpt 24

When I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat.†
Chpt 26

And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.†
Chpt 30

While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her.†
Chpt 32

Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my income: some, contingent on my coming into my property.†
Chpt 37

"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at the fire.†
Chpt 38

disengaging = stopped interacting or having interest; or uninteresting

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.

Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to have gone ahead at an amazing rate.†
Chpt 38

While I did so, he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again.†
Chpt 39

When he was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of cards of his own,—a game that I never saw before or since, and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,—when he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to read to him,—"Foreign language, dear boy!"†
Chpt 40

When he had made an end of his breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of preface,— "After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up.†
Chpt 41

We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day.†
Chpt 45

Now, another great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged.†
Chpt 45

There was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, with Old Barley growling in the beam,—that I would not have undone the engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the pocket-book I had never opened.†
Chpt 46

The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner.†
Chpt 47

And are not engaged?†
Chpt 48

I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged.†
Chpt 48

"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather uncertain of my time.†
Chpt 48

This pain of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention engaged.†
Chpt 50

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in which I had been a few hours before.†
Chpt 54

He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.†
Chpt 54

disengaged = not interacting or having interest; or stopped interacting or having interest

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.

There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which after saying "Now, Handel," as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.†
Chpt 55

"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of sorts, Mr. Pip.†
Chpt 55

That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white.†
Chpt 55

He did everything for me except the household work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his first arrival.†
Chpt 57

The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, which was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and post-chaises up the yard.†
Chpt 58

Some hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated.†
Chpt 58

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Best Example Sentences
From Other Sources
Grouped by 5 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (engage as in: engage in conversation)
to interact in various ways -- such as to participate, involve, interest, or attract
The exact meaning of this sense of engage depends upon its context. For example:
- "They engaged in debate." -- participated
- "She engaged him in conversation." -- involved
- "She is an engaging conversationalist." -- interesting
- "She has an engaging smile." -- attractive (attracting interest and interaction)
- "The proposal engages the interest of many young voters." -- attracts and involves
- "She engages with her constituents." -- interacts in a meaningful way
(2) (engage as in: engage her services)
hire, reserve, book, or occupy
(3) (engaged as in: engaged and then married)
promised to marry
(4) (engage as in: engage the enemy)
begin fighting
(5) (engage as in: engage the gears)
move into position to work; or start
(6) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)

Page Numbers by Book Edition

engage in Great Expectations

engage

in

Great Expectations