Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying technical and scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria. The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor of ABETABET History) has defined engineering as follows:

“1he creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.”Science, Volume 94, Issue 2446, pp. 456: Engineers' Council for Professional DevelopmentEngineers' Council for Professional Development. (1947). Canons of ethics for engineersEngineers' Council for Professional Development definition on Encyclopaedia Britannica (Includes Britannica article on Engineering)

One who practices engineering is called an engineer, and those licensed to do so may have more formal designations such as Professional Engineer, Chartered Engineer, or Incorporated Engineer. The broad discipline of engineering encompasses a range of more specialized subdisciplines, each with a more specific emphasis on certain fields of application and particular areas of technology.

History

The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine'er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to “a constructor of military engines.” In this context, now obsolete, an “engine” referred to a military machine, i. e., a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). The word “engine” itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 1250), meaning “innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention.”Origin: 1250–1300; ME engin < AF, OF < L ingenium nature, innate quality, esp. mental power, hence a clever invention, equiv. to in- + -genium, equiv. to gen- begetting; Source: Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.