Machine

English Meaning

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 transmit, modify, and apply them to the production of some desired mechanical effect or work, as weaving by a loom, or the excitation of electricity by an electrical machine.

1. A device consisting of fixed and moving parts that modifies mechanical energy and transmits it in a more useful form.
2. A simple device, such as a lever, a pulley, or an inclined plane, that alters the magnitude or direction, or both, of an applied force; a simple machine.
3. A system or device for doing work, as an automobile or a jackhammer, together with its power source and auxiliary equipment.
4. A system or device, such as a computer, that performs or assists in the performance of a human task: The machine is down.
5. An intricate natural system or organism, such as the human body.
6. A person who acts in a rigid, mechanical, or unconscious manner.
7. An organized group of people whose members are or appear to be under the control of one or more leaders: a political machine.
8. A device used to produce a stage effect, especially a mechanical means of lowering an actor onto the stage.
9. A literary device used to produce an effect, especially the introduction of a supernatural being to resolve a plot.
10. An answering machine: Leave a message on my machine if I'm not home.
11. Of, relating to, or felt to resemble a machine: machine repairs; machine politics.
12. To cut, shape, or finish by machine.
13. To be cut, shaped, or finished by machine: This metal machines easily.