Dictionary entries for 'machine'

ma·chine (mə-shēń)

[French, from Old French, from Latin māchina, from Greek mākhanā, dialectal variant of mēkhanē.]

noun

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.
A system or device for doing work, as an automobile or a jackhammer, together with its power source and auxiliary equipment.
A system or device, such as a computer, that performs or assists in the performance of a human task: The machine is down.
An intricate natural system or organism, such as the human body.
A person who acts in a rigid, mechanical, or unconscious manner.
An organized group of people whose members are or appear to be under the control of one or more leaders: a political machine.
1. A device used to produce a stage effect, especially a mechanical means of lowering an actor onto the stage.
2. A literary device used to produce an effect, especially the introduction of a supernatural being to resolve a plot.
An answering machine: Leave a message on my machine if I'm not home.

Of, relating to, or felt to resemble a machine: machine repairs; machine politics.