- ma|chine
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–n.1. an arrangement of fixed and moving parts for doing work, each part having some special thing to do; mechanical apparatus or device: »
Sewing machines and washing machines make housework easier.
2. any device for applying or changing the direction of power, force, or motion. Levers and pulleys are simple machines. SYNONYM(S): mechanism.5. Figurative. a person or group that acts without thinking: »Public hacknies in the schooling trade…Machines themselves, and governed by a clock (William Cowper).
SYNONYM(S): automaton.6. Figurative. a group of people controlling a political party or other organization: »the Democratic machine, the boss of a state machine.
7. a) a contrivance in the ancient theater for producing stage effects. b) a contrivance, such as a supernatural power or person, introduced into a literary work for effect.8. Archaic. the human or animal body.9. any structure or contrivance: »There was not a bed…except one old-fashioned machine, with a high-gilt tester (Tobias Smollett).
10. Obsolete. any vehicle, such as a stagecoach.–adj.1. of or having to do with a machine or machines: »machine action, a machine politician, the machine age.
2. by or with a machine, not by hand: »machine printing.
3. Figurative. like that of a machine; mechanical or stereotyped.–v.t.to make, prepare, or finish with a machine: »Bessemer steel normally contains more sulfur and phosphorus, and therefore is easier to machine, or cut (Max D. Howell).
╂[< Middle French machine, learned borrowing from Latin māchina < Greek mēchan
a device < mêchos means, expedient]
Useful english dictionary. 2012.
