machine

Meanings

Noun

• A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.
• A vehicle operated mechanically, such as an automobile or an airplane.
• An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.
• A computer.
• A person or organisation that seemingly acts like a machine, being particularly efficient, single-minded, or unemotional.
• 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.
• Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
• The system of special interest groups that supports a political party, especially in urban areas.
• Penis.
• 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.
• A bathing machine.

Verb

• To make by machinery.
• To shape or finish by machinery.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• cigarette machine
• finite state machine
• jet machine
• knitting machine
• pinball machine
• rowing machine
• sewing machine
• simple machine
• slot machine
• smoke machine
• tamping machine
• ticket machine
• tunnel boring machine
• vending machine
• virtual machine
• washing machine

Origin

• Borrowed from Middle French machine, from Latin māchina ("a machine, engine, contrivance, device, stratagem, trick"), from , cognate with , from which comes mechanical.
• Displaced native Old English searu.