engagement
Other forms: engagements
If you are a musician or performer and you arrange for a performance, then you have booked an engagement. You might stand in line for tickets when your favorite comedian books an engagement at the local theater.
An engagement can also be a general appointment. A previous engagement is the perfect excuse not to go to the opera with your grandmother. An engagement also means an agreement to get married. The news of your engagement might please everyone you know except your fiancé's ex-girlfriend. A military engagement is a hostile meeting of military forces on opposing sides of a conflict.
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a meeting arranged in advancesynonyms: appointment, datetype of:
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a mutual promise to marry
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employment for performers or performing groups that lasts for a limited period of time
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the act of giving someone a jobsynonyms: employmenttypes:shape-upa way of hiring longshoremen by the day; applicants gather around a union boss who selects those to be hiredcall-backthe recall of an employee after a layoffbooking, reservationthe act of reserving (a place or passage) or engaging the services of (a person or group)type of:actionsomething done (usually as opposed to something said)
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the act of sharing in the activities of a group“the teacher tried to increase his students' engagement in class activities”synonyms: involution, involvement, participationantonyms:non-engagementwithdrawing from the activities of a grouptypes:commitmentan engagement by contract involving financial obligationgroup participationparticipation by all members of a groupincurrencethe act of incurring (making yourself subject to something undesirable)type of:group actionaction taken by a group of people
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contact by fitting together
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a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war“he lost his romantic ideas about war when he got into a real engagement”examples:Battle of Britainthe prolonged bombardment of British cities by the German Luftwaffe during World War II and the aerial combat that accompanied itDroghedain 1649 the place was captured by Oliver Cromwell, who massacred the Catholic inhabitantstypes:Armageddonany catastrophically destructive battlepitched battlea fierce battle fought in close combat between troops in predetermined positions at a chosen time and placenaval battlea pitched battle between naval fleetsdogfightan aerial engagement between fighter planesassaultclose fighting during the culmination of a military attackresisting arrestphysical efforts to oppose a lawful arrest; the resistance is classified as assault and battery upon the person of the police officer attempting to make the arresttrench warfarea type of armed combat in which the opposing troops fight from trenches that face each otherstorma direct and violent assault on a strongholdaggressionthe act of initiating hostilitiestype of:
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing engagement
During the Great Depression, a ten-year-old boy hits the road in search of the father he has never known.
In September, 1952, Richard Nixon, a young senator from California, was nominated to run for Vice President. Days later, however, he was accused of accepting funds from campaign donors to use for personal expenses. Nixon chose to use the new medium of television to defend himself. In a televised speech, he admitted to receiving one gift — a cocker spaniel named Checkers. He explained that his two young daughters loved the dog and would not give it up. The speech was a tremendous success, and Nixon went on to serve two terms as Vice President. Ironically, another television performance, a debate with John Kennedy in 1960, cost him the election that year. Nixon was elected President in 1968, but ultimately resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
