English
machine
Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French machine, from Latin māchina, from grc-dor μᾱχᾰνᾱ́, cognate with grc-att μηχᾰνή, from which comes mechanical.

Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /məˈʃiːn/
  • (America) IPA: /məˈʃin/
Noun

machine (plural machines)

  1. A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.
  2. (dated) A vehicle operated mechanically, such as an automobile or an airplane.
  3. (telephony, abbreviation) An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.
    I called you earlier, but all I got was the machine.
  4. (computing) A computer.
    Game developers assume they're pushing the limits of the machine.
    He refuses to turn off his Linux machine.
  5. (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.
    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.
    • 1828, Walter Savage Landor, “Rousseau and Malesherbes”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC ↗:
      The whole machine of government, civil and religious, ought never to bear upon the people with a weight so oppressive
  7. (poetry) Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
    • 1712 May 2 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, April 21, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 351; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗:
      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 […]
      The spelling has been modernized.
  8. (politics, chiefly, US) The system of special interest groups that supports a political party, especially in urban areas.
    • 1902, The Friend:
      A machine politician cannot see why the straight ticket (as be and his clique of party bosses prepare it) should not be voted by every citizen belonging to that party.
  9. (euphemistic, obsolete) Penis.
    • 1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC ↗, page 107 ↗:
      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 placing himſelf ſtanding between them, made them reſt upon his hips: applying then the point of his machine to the ſlit, into which he ſought entrance;
  10. (historical) 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. (obsolete) A bathing machine.
    • 1823, Frances Burney, Journals and Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 512:
      One Machine only was provided for Bathers, the Limitted smoothness of the sands not extending widely enough to admit another.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

machine (machines, present participle machining; simple past and past participle machined)

  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.
Translations Translations

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