The arrangement or relation of the parts of a machine; the parts of a machine, taken collectively; the arrangement or relation of the parts of anything as adapted to produce an effect; as, the mechanism of a watch; the mechanism of a sewing machine; the mechanism of a seed pod.
The series of causal relations that operate to produce an effect in any system; as, the mechanism of a chemical reaction.
Mechanical operation or action.
An ideal machine; a combination of movable bodies constituting a machine, but considered only with regard to relative movements.
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.
