machine
UK /məˈʃiːn/ · US /məˈʃin/ noun, verb
Forms machines machining machined
- noun A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.
- noun (dated) A vehicle operated mechanically, such as an automobile or an airplane.
- noun (telephony, abbreviation) An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail. “I called you earlier, but all I got was the machine.”
- noun (computing) A computer. “Game developers assume they're pushing the limits of the machine.”
- noun (figuratively) A person or organisation that seemingly acts like a machine, being particularly efficient, single-minded, or unemotional. “Bruce Campbell was a "demon-killing machine" because he made quick work of killing demons.”
- noun Especially, the group that controls a political or similar organization; a combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use.
- noun (poetry) Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
- noun (politics, chiefly US) The system of special interest groups that supports a political party, especially in urban areas.
- verb To make by machinery.
- verb To shape or finish by machinery; (usually, more specifically) to shape subtractively by metal-cutting with machine-controlled toolpaths.
Synonyms
engine simple machine political machine car auto automobile motorcar
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French machine, from Latin māchina (“a machine, engine, contrivance, device, stratagem, trick”), from Doric Greek μᾱχᾰνᾱ́ (mākhănā́), cognate with Attic Greek μηχᾰνή (mēkhănḗ, “a machine, engine, contrivance, device”), from which comes mechanical. Displaced native Old English searu.
Webster’s 1913
- noun In general, any combination of bodies so connected that their relative motions are constrained, and by means of which force and motion may be transmitted and modified, as a screw and its nut, or a lever arranged to turn about a fulcrum or a pulley about its pivot, etc.; especially, a construction, more or less complex, consisting of a combination of moving parts, or simple mechanical elements, as wheels, levers, cams, etc., with their supports and connecting framework, calculated to constitute a prime mover, or to receive force and motion from a prime mover or from another machine, and transmi
- noun Any mechanical contrivance, as the wooden horse with which the Greeks entered Troy; a coach; a bicycle. Dryden. Southey. Thackeray.
- verb To subject to the action of machinery; to effect by aid of machinery; to print with a printing machine.
Etymology [F., fr. L. machina machine, engine, device, trick, Gr. Mechanic.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “machine”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details