Adjacent Words

Machinery definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

MACHINERY, n. A complicated work, or combination of mechanical powers in a work, designed to increase, regulate or apply motion and force; as the machinery of a watch or other chronometer.
1. Machines in general. The machinery of a cotton-mill is often moved by a single wheel.
2. In epic and dramatic poetry, superhuman beings introduced by the poet to solve difficulty, or perform some exploit which exceeds human power; or the word may signify the agency of such beings, as supposed deities, angels, demons and the like.
Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Incidit.
A deity is not to be introduced,unless a difficulty occurs that requires the intervention of a god.
The machinery of Milton's Paradise Lost, consists of numerous superhuman personages. Pope's Rape of the Lock is rendered very interesting by the machinery of sylphs.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: machines or machine systems collectively
2: a system of means and activities whereby a social institution functions; "the complex machinery of negotiation"; "the machinery of command labored and brought forth an order"

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -eries) Date: 1687 1. a. machines in general or as a functioning unit b. the working parts of a machine 2. the means or system by which something is kept in action or a desired result is obtained <the machinery of government> <genetic machinery of cells>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 machines collectively. 2 the components of a machine; a mechanism. 3 (foll. by of) an organized system. 4 (foll. by for) the means devised or available (the machinery for decision-making).

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Machinery Ma*chin"er*y, n. [From Machine: cf. F. machinerie.] 1. Machines, in general, or collectively. 2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as, the machinery of a watch. 3. The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or fictitious work is carried on and brought to a catastrophe; in an extended sense, the contrivances by which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious narrative, in prose or verse, are effected. The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem. --Pope. 4. The means and appliances by which anything is kept in action or a desired result is obtained; a complex system of parts adapted to a purpose. An indispensable part of the machinery of state. --Macaulay. The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan languages. --I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. You can use machinery to refer to machines in general, or machines that are used in a factory or on a farm. ...quality tools and machinery. ...your local garden machinery specialist... 2. The machinery of a government or organization is the system and all the procedures that it uses to deal with things. The machinery of democracy could be created quickly. N-SING: the N, oft N of n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Enginery, mechanism. 2. Supernatural agency (in poems).

Moby Thesaurus

accouterments, action, adding machine, addressing machine, agency, agent, all-crop harvester, apparatus, appliance, appliances, appointments, appurtenances, armament, automobile, backhoe, baler, bean harvester, beet harvester, binder, breaker, bulldozer, calfdozer, carryall, cast plow, channel, clockworks, combine, compressor, contraption, contrivance, convenience, conveniences, cotton picker, crab, crane, crimping machine, cultivator, cutting machine, cutting press, derrick, device, dishwasher, disk, disk harrow, disk plow, drag, dredge, dredger, dredging machine, drill, drill plow, drive, drive train, drop hammer, duffel, dumping machine, edger, elevator dredge, engine, enginery, equipage, equipment, expedient, facilities, facility, fittings, fixture, fixtures, folding machine, four-bottom plow, furnishings, furniture, gadget, gang plow, gear, gin, going between, grader, grain harvester, grub hook, habiliments, harrow, harvester, haymaker, header, hoe drill, hoist, hydraulic press, impedimenta, implement, innards, installations, instrument, instrumentality, intermediation, kit, lawn mower, lister, lister cultivator, machine, machine drill, mailing machine, materiel, means, mechanical aid, mechanical device, mechanism, mediation, medium, middlebreaker, moldboard plow, motion, motive power, motor, motorcycle, movement, movements, mower, munition, munitions, navvy, organ, outfit, packager, paraphernalia, peg-tooth harrow, pile driver, planing machine, plant, planter, plow, plow drill, plumbing, power mower, power plant, power shovel, power source, power train, prairie breaker, press, press drill, printing machine, pulp machine, punching machine, pusher, rake, recourse, resort, rig, rigging, roller, rose engine, rotary plow, ruling machine, saw machine, scooter, scraper, screwing machine, seed plow, seeder, service, servomechanism, sewer, sewing machine, shovel plow, snap machine, snow-thrower, snowblower, snowplow, solar machine, sprayer, spring-tooth harrow, stag gang, steam hammer, steam shovel, steamroller, stock-in-trade, subsoil plow, sulky lister, sulky plow, swather, swivel plow, tackle, tackling, tedder, things, thrasher, three-bottom plow, thresher, threshing machine, tool, tractor, trench plow, triphammer, turnplow, two-bottom plow, typewriter, typing machine, utensil, utensils, utility, vehicle, vineyard plow, walking plow, washing machine, watchworks, water wheel, wheels, wheels within wheels, windlass, windrower, workings, works