TRACTION ENGINE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Traction engine

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/trˈækʃən ˈɛndʒən/ Listen

noun

Traction n.

The act of drawing, or the state of being drawn; as, the traction of a muscle.

Specifically, the act of drawing a body along a plane by motive power, as the drawing of a carriage by men or horses, the towing of a boat by a tug.

Attraction; a drawing toward. (R.)

The adhesive friction of a wheel on a rail, a rope on a pulley, or the like; as, the car is stuck in the snow because it can;t get any traction.

Angle of traction (Mech.), the angle made with a given plane by the line of direction in which a tractive force acts.

Traction engine, a locomotive for drawing vehicles on highways or in the fields.

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Etymology of 'Traction engine'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Traction engine" Quotes from Famous Books

... to fate and this Juggernaut of a man who rolled other people's feelings flat with no more compunction than a traction engine. ...

— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... points of defense, and it has only been within a few years that a solution of the trouble has been found. The solution lay in the use of tractors, or the tractor principle, which every person familiar with farming and the "traction engine" ...

— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... traction engine; it has gone through worlds of fancy and reflection, dragging me behind it; and long experience has given it so great facility, that I have only to fire up, whistle, and fix my couplings, and away goes my locomotive with no end of cars ...

— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... been made to connect the leading wheels of a traction engine with the driving wheels, so as to make drivers of all of them, and thus increase the tractive power of the engine, and to afford greater facilities for getting along soft ground or out of holes. The wheels with continuous ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... drooping hills and wooded valleys. He moved as one careless of time, whose only object was to see the country. Once he stayed to talk with a stone-breaker by the side of the wood; once he led a farmer's restive horse and trap by a traction engine. On both occasions he contrived to drop a good deal of information about himself, and his reasons for being in that part of the country. That it was false was little matter. The best way to stop local gossip is ...

— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest