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.
Any mechanical contrivance, as the wooden horse with which the Greeks entered Troy; a coach; a bicycle.
A person who acts mechanically or at the will of another.
A combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use; as, the social machine.
A political organization arranged and controlled by one or more leaders for selfish, private or partisan ends; the Tammany machine.
Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
To subject to the action of machinery; to make, cut, shape, or modify with a machine; to effect by aid of machinery; to print with a printing machine.
That which is devised, or formed by design; a contrivance; an invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice.
Power of devising; invention; contrivance.
An emblematic design, generally consisting of one or more figures with a motto, used apart from heraldic bearings to denote the historical situation, the ambition, or the desire of the person adopting it. See Cognizance.
Anything fancifully conceived.
A spectacle or show.
Opinion; decision.
any artifactual object designed to perform an action or process, with or without an operator in attendance.
