Ok, like this has been bugging me for years.When I was in high school, I took auto classes, and my instructor was anal about calling an engine an engine, and NOT a motor.A motor is an electrical device, while an engine is powered by fuel. Therefore it is an internal combustion engine, and not an internal combustion motor.I watch all kinds of car shows on Spike TV or the Speed channel (especially the Barret-Jackson auctions), and it drives me crazy when the commentators are describing a 427 motor in a Corvette. Or how about a 350 crate motor? It's an engine darn it. Power windows have motors.Anyway, am I the only one that feels this way? I'm an old fart (in my 50's), and more and more chicken s**t is starting to bug me. This being one of them.Thanks for listening.

I correct myselfs from time to time on it...

I usually slip and just say motor though

Actually, your auto instructor was wrong.

The word "motor" refers to anything that provides motive force to an object. You'll notice that rockets are commonly referred to (by Ph.D. rocket scientists) as MOTORS.

An engine is something that takes one for of energy and converts it into another, or something that produces some sort of work or energy from a given input.

Car engines are both engines and motors. It converts chemical energy into mechanical energy, making it an engine, and it also moves the car, making it a motor.

Electrical motors could even be considered engines, since they take electrical energy and convert it into mechanical energy.Even a generator or alternator is an engine; it is still producing work or energy from a mechanical input.

technically any of these things can be a motorElectric motor, a machine that converts electricity into a mechanical motion Thermodynamic motor or heat engine, a machine that converts heat into mechanical motion Molecular motors, the essential agents of movement in living organisms Pneumatic motor, a machine that converts the energy of compressed air into mechanical motion Hydraulic motor, a machine that converts the energy of pressurized liquid flow into mechanical motion. Synthetic molecular motors or nanomotors

An internal combustion engine is really just a type of motor, falling somewhere in the neighborhood of thermodynamic and pneumatic motors. An argument for either case could be made because they use a heat generating reaction to create the motion, but the actual force comes from the pressurization of gasses as a result of that heat.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Actually, your auto instructor was wrong.

The word "motor" refers to anything that provides motive force to an object. You'll notice that rockets are commonly referred to (by Ph.D. rocket scientists) as MOTORS.

An engine is something that takes one for of energy and converts it into another, or something that produces some sort of work or energy from a given input.

Car engines are both engines and motors. It converts chemical energy into mechanical energy, making it an engine, and it also moves the car, making it a motor.

Electrical motors could even be considered engines, since they take electrical energy and convert it into mechanical energy.Even a generator or alternator is an engine; it is still producing work or energy from a mechanical input.

Hate to admit it, but after checking some definitions via Google, etc., it turns out that you are indeed correct. My shop teacher is probably turning over in his grave right now.Having said that, it will still be uncomfortable for me to hear someone refer to a car engine as a motor. Oh well, them's the breaks.Thanks.

science done broke my head.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Actually, your auto instructor was wrong.

The word "motor" refers to anything that provides motive force to an object. You'll notice that rockets are commonly referred to (by Ph.D. rocket scientists) as MOTORS.

An engine is something that takes one for of energy and converts it into another, or something that produces some sort of work or energy from a given input.

Car engines are both engines and motors. It converts chemical energy into mechanical energy, making it an engine, and it also moves the car, making it a motor.

Electrical motors could even be considered engines, since they take electrical energy and convert it into mechanical energy.Even a generator or alternator is an engine; it is still producing work or energy from a mechanical input.

So all motors are engines and all engines are motors? Can we say they are synonymous?

By definition I suppose they are. In my head though, they're not. Old values die hard.

Hey, ever wonder why we park on a driveway, and drive on a parkway?And why aren't hemorrhoids called asteroids?

redtop91 wrote:
So all motors are engines and all engines are motors? Can we say they are synonymous?

For the sake of simplicity...most of the time, yes.

But a spring-powered motor isn't an engine. Neither is a rocket engine: And you could have an engine that doesn't move anything, but does some other sort of work instead (For instance, a car rocket engine that boils water).

Yeah, I'm a physics nerd and an etymology/linguistics nerd.

Here's how I look at it; it's not airtight but it generally holds as true...

An engine generates the driving force behind something. Could be anything from motion, to heat, to chemical change, and to a more absract sense, it's why software engines are called that, they are the core coding that drive the rest of the program.

A motor on the other hand is specifically limited to continual motion, most often, but not always, rotational, and frequently that rotational motion is translated into straight line motion via gears and contact and whatnot.

An engine that drives limited interrupted motion (such as a hydraulic pump) is more likely to be considered an actuator than a motor, though they aren't mutually exclusive.