prime mover

Definitions

1. The initial agent that is the cause of all things.
2. A machine, such as a water wheel or steam engine, that receives and modifies energy as supplied by some natural source or fuel and transforms it into mechanical work
3. Tractor unit. Or, more specifically, the front part of a semi-trailer type truck, i.e., the tractor to which the trailer part attaches.
4. A military or heavy construction vehicle.
   US
5. A person or thing that is seminal and influential.

Equivalents

Examples

“"I need⟳ not remind⟳ this audience that, though Professor Summerlee, as the head of the Committee of Investigation, has been put⟳ up to speak⟳ to-night, still it is I who am the real prime mover in this business, and that it is mainly to me that any successful result⟳ must be ascribed."”

“Seeger was a prime mover in the folk-music revival and was accepted by collegians and young people outside the South, regardless of his alleged Communist sympathies […]”

“This first article looked at the present⟳ situation and asks if lessons can be learned from the past, when the railways were the prime mover in the development of tourism and leisure travel⟳.”

CEFR level