engine room

engine room

The main source of talent, power, or ability in a team or group, likened to the room that houses a ship's engine. Sarah is our engine room, so with her injured, I'm not sure how we'll be able to win on Saturday.
See also: engine, room
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • antifreeze
  • under hatches
  • under the hatches
  • jump-start
  • jump-start someone
  • it will take some doing
  • all show and no go
  • in the name of God
  • in the dust
  • closing the stable door after the horse has bolted
References in periodicals archive
Kathryn Daniel, head of marketing at PAXMAN, added: "From the moment we engaged The Engine Room in 2015, we have never looked back.
Men were assigned to gather all equipment possible from the rest of the ship in order to extinguish the fire and assemble at midships above the engine room. We attacked the fire from the upper deck going down through hatches to get above the engine room.
The steward added: "Pick up some sandwiches from the galley before you go down to the engine room at midnight."
Simple to install, multiple sensors can be fit in an engine room, depending on desired sensitivity.
In the automatic mode, the unit senses engine room temperature.
Although the pilot scheme is modest, I hope that it will encourage other companies to invest in Moving Forward's Engine Room project.
A spokeswoman said: "Indications are that the fire is out but crews have to enter the engine room to confirm that."
Pointing to our 100 percent college acceptance rate at Hyde-DC (all four schools combined annually attain 98 percent), Traub seems begrudging when he offers that we "must be doing something right." We offer him a standing invitation to take a hard look at our "engine room" should he want to discover the nature of that something.
And there are plenty of problems rattling around in corporate engine rooms. According to the Corporate Executive Board, in 2003 the total losses from occupational fraud at Fortune 500 companies amounted to $420 billion.
(The 2005 Mustang even has enough engine room to fit the Modular V10, should it see production.)
THE five-man crew of a fishing boat are believed to have escaped unhurt when a fire broke out in the engine room of their vessel.
The blaze started in the engine room of the Kaliope, a vessel registered to the Bahamas, as it sailed 30 miles north-east of Dover.
The engines on the Norsea, which was carrying 611 passengers, were re- started around 9am after drifting in the North Sea following a fire in the engine room.
The engine room ship fire took place aboard the MV Cape Horn, a rollon/roll-off vessel operated by the Navy's Military Sealift Command.
The excellent design of the ship kept the ammunition safely separated from the engine room -- a 40-foot firewall separated the holds containing the ammunition from the engine room, said Military Sealift Command officials.