2. To gain for service; to bring in as associate or aid; to
enlist; as, to engage friends to aid in a cause; to engage
men for service.
3. To gain over; to win and attach; to attract and hold; to
draw.
Good nature engages everybody to him. --Addison.
4. To employ the attention and efforts of; to occupy; to
engross; to draw on.
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage. --Pope.
Taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging
him in conversation. --Hawthorne.
5. To enter into contest with; to encounter; to bring to
conflict.
A favorable opportunity of engaging the enemy.
--Ludlow.
6. (Mach.) To come into gear with; as, the teeth of one
cogwheel engage those of another, or one part of a clutch
engages the other part.
{Engaging and disengaging} {gear or machinery}, that in
which, or by means of which, one part is alternately
brought into gear or out of gear with another part, as
occasion may require.