[f. ENGAGE v. + -ING2.] That engages, in various senses.
1. † a. Obliging (obs.). † b. Absorbing, interesting (obs.). c. Winning, attractive.
1673. Vain Insolency of Rome, 11. I have not forgot your engaging Charity.
1692. E. Walker, trans. Epictetus’ Mor., lxi. 99.
| That these ingaging vertues are the tyes, | |
| That more oblige, than arts, or amorousies. |
1713. Berkeley, Ess. in Guardian, vi. Wks. III. 163. Virtue has in herself the most engaging charms.
1817. J. Scott, Paris Revisit., 104. The walk on the old ramparts presents several most engaging views.
1833. B’ness Bunsen, in Hare, Life (1879), I. ix. 405. She … has always the same engaging manner.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 250. His countenance was eminently handsome and engaging.
2. That makes an engagement or gives a pledge.
1883. Glasgow Her., 31 Aug., 4/2. The father of the infant baptised used to be addressed [in the Scotch baptismal service] as ‘the engaging parent.’
3. Mech. Engaging and disengaging machinery: that in which one part is alternately united to, or separated from, another part, as occasion may require. (Nicholson.)
