means A self-propelled engine, originally steam-powered, that pulls or pushes railway cars along a track.

from A 19th-century coinage stitched from Latin: loco, meaning 'from a place' (the ablative of locus, 'place'), plus motivus, 'causing motion' (from movere, 'to move'). Literally, then, 'moving from a place' — a fancy Latin badge for a machine whose whole point was to not stay put. The word first traveled as the adjective 'locomotive,' describing the power of self-movement, before it settled down as a noun naming the iron beast itself.