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say it: en-GAYJD
engaged is an adjective meaning "having ones attention or mind or energy engaged". It is pronounced /ɛnˈɡeɪdʒd/ — en-GAYJD. It carries 7 recorded senses.
reserved in advance
(of facilities such as telephones or lavatories) unavailable for use by anyone else or indicating unavailability; (`engaged' is a British term for a busy telephone line)
“her line is busy”
“receptionists' telephones are always engaged”
“the lavatory is in use”
“kept getting a busy signal”
(used of toothed parts or gears) interlocked and interacting
“the gears are engaged”
“meshed gears”
“intermeshed twin rotors”
having services contracted for
“the carpenter engaged (or employed) for the job is sick”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for engaged come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.