machine

A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.

Noun

  1. A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.
    • An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine. - 2013 June 1, “A better...
  2. A vehicle operated mechanically, such as an automobile or an airplane.
    • As he stood directly beneath a brilliant arc light, waiting for a limousine that was approaching to pass him, he heard his name called in a sweet feminine voice. Looking up, he met the smiling eyes of Olga de Coude as...
    • As the aviator turned his machine to reconnoitre in the new direction, he was surprised to see the hostile aeroplane between him and his objective. - 1914 July, F. Britten Austin, “The Air-Scout”, in The Strand...
    • "Joe, how soon will you be ready to roll?" Frank Hardy burst into the garage where his brother was working on a sleek, black-and-silver motorcycle. "Right now, if this machine kicks over," Joe replied, putting down a...
  3. An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.
    • I called you earlier, but all I got was the machine.
  4. A computer.
    • Game developers assume they're pushing the limits of the machine.
    • He refuses to turn off his Linux machine.
  5. 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.
    • The government has become a money-making machine.
  6. 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.
    • The whole machine of government, civil and religious, ought never to bear upon the people with a weight so oppressive - 1828, Walter Savage Landor, “Rousseau and Malesherbes”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men...
  7. Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
    • I am apt to think, that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid[…] - 1712 May 1 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “SUNDAY, April 21, 1712”, in The...
  8. The system of special interest groups that supports a political party, especially in urban areas.
    • A machine politician cannot see why the straight ticket (as he and his clique of party bosses prepare it) should not be voted by every citizen belonging to that party. - 1902, The Friend:
    • In essence, therefore, the right-fork strategy of the Democrats meant an alliance of the South with the political machines built on the non-Protestant immigrants in key Northeastern states. - 2006, Jerry F. Hough,...
    • He was thrust into a political maelstrom for which he was ill-prepared, and yet he was, most notably, the Chicago machine's political savior. - 2013, Paul M. Green, Melvin G. Holli, The Mayors: The Chicago Political...
  9. Penis.
    • He now reſumes his attempts in more form: firſt he put one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in eaſe of it: then ſpreading my thighs, and...
  10. A contrivance in the Ancient Greek theatre for indicating a change of scene, by means of which a god might cross the stage or deliver a divine message; the deus ex machina.
  11. A bathing machine.
    • One Machine only was provided for Bathers, the Limitted smoothness of the sands not extending widely enough to admit another. - 1823, Frances Burney, Journals and Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 512:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *megʰ-der.? Doric Greek μηχᾰνή (mēkhănḗ) Doric Greek μᾱχᾰνᾱ́ (mākhănā́)bor. Latin māchinabor. Middle French machinebor. English machine 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.

Forms

machines

Synonyms

machine engine

Hypernyms

device

Hyponyms

add value machine a-machine bean machine blister machine brain machine Charpy machine choice machine cigarette machine c-machine dishwashing machine Eilenberg machine excavating machine finite state machine franking machine Google machine grinding machine ice resurfacing machine interactive teller machine interlingual machine translation jet machine knitting machine liquid state machine machine intelligence machine that goes

Related

Turing machine state machine virtual machine tool :Category:Machines Outline of machines on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Derived

accounting machine adding machine antimachine arcwall machine ATM machine Atwood machine Atwood's machine automated machine learning automated teller machine automatic data processing machine automatic teller machine baby machine ball machine bank machine biomachine bookkeeping machine bread machine business machine carding machine cash machine claw machine coffee machine compound machine copy machine

Verb

  1. To make by machinery.
  2. To shape or finish by machinery; (usually, more specifically) to shape subtractively by metal-cutting with machine-controlled toolpaths.
    • Engineering materials have been recently developed whose hardness and strength are considerably increased, such that the cutting speed and the MRR tend to fall when machining such materials using traditional methods...

Forms

machines machining machined

Derived

machinist machinofacture