external-combustion engine

1. 1.

   a heat engine in which ignition occurs outside the chamber (cylinder or turbine) in which heat is converted to mechanical energy

   Broaderheat engine

   Narrowersteam engine

Questions about external-combustion engine

What does external-combustion engine mean?

external-combustion engine means "a heat engine in which ignition occurs outside the chamber (cylinder or turbine) in which heat is converted to mechanical energy".

Is external-combustion engine a common word?

external-combustion engine is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.