Abbreviation for 'brake horsepower,' a measurement of an engine's power output, specifically the usable power delivered at the engine's crankshaft.
From English: 'brake' (the device used to measure power), 'horsepower' (a unit of power originally defined as the work one horse could do). The term originated in the 19th century when engineers needed to compare engine power to horse labor.
The fact that we still measure engine power in 'horsepower' is wild—it literally comes from James Watt timing how fast a horse could pump water from a mine, and we've stuck with that comparison for over 200 years!
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