Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to machines or tools.
- adjective Operated or produced by a mechanism or machine.
- adjective Of, relating to, or governed by mechanics.
- adjective Performed or performing in an impersonal or machinelike manner; automatic.
- adjective Relating to, produced by, or dominated by physical forces.
- adjective Philosophy Interpreting and explaining the phenomena of the universe by referring to causally determined material forces; mechanistic.
- adjective Of or relating to manual labor, its tools, and its skills.
- noun A layout consisting of type proofs, artwork, or both, exactly positioned and prepared for making an offset or other printing plate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun plural The trade-name for common articles, such as overshoes, of vulcanized india-rubber, made by molding, and often of old reworked material.
- Pertaining to or exhibiting constructive power; of or pertaining to mechanism or machinery; also, dependent upon the use of mechanism; of the nature or character of a machine or machinery: as, mechanical inventions or contrivances; to do something by mechanical means.
- Machine-like; acting or actuated by or as if by machinery, or by fixed routine; lacking spontaneity, spirit, individuality, etc.; as applied to actions, automatic, instinctive, unconscious, etc.: as, the mechanical action of the heart; a mechanical musician.
- Having the characteristics of that which is produced by machinery or is artificially contrived; artificial; not spontaneous; not genuine or of natural growth; lacking life or spirit; humdrum.
- Of or pertaining to the material forces of nature acting on inanimate bodies or masses; specifically, pertaining to the principles or laws of mechanics: as, the mechanical effects of frost; the mechanical powers.
- Effected by material force or forces; consisting in the play of material forces: as, mechanical pressure.
- Exalting the material forces of the universe above the spiritual; subordinating the spiritual to the material; materialistic: as, the mechanical philosophy (specifically, atomism); a mechanical view of life.
- Belonging to or characteristic of mechanics or artisans, or their class; mechanic-like; having the character or status of an artisan; hence (chiefly in old writings), mean, low, or vulgar.
- Engaged in operating machines or machinery, or in superintending their operation: as, a mechanical engineer.
- Exhibiting or indicating skill in contrivance, invention, or the use of tools and machines: as, a mechanical genius; a mechanical turn of mind.
- Effected or controlled by physical forces that are not chemical: as, a mechanical mixture (that is, one in which the several ingredients still retain their identity, and are held together by no special force whether of cohesion or chemical attraction); mechanical decomposition.—
- noun A mechanic.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A mechanic.
- adjective Pertaining to, governed by, or in accordance with, mechanics, or the laws of motion; pertaining to the quantitative relations of force and matter on a macroscopic scale, as distinguished from
mental ,vital ,chemical ,electrical ,electronic ,atomic etc.; - adjective Of or pertaining to a machine or to machinery or tools; made or formed by a machine or with tools
- adjective Done as if by a machine; uninfluenced by will or emotion; proceeding automatically, or by habit, without special intention or reflection
- adjective Made and operated by interaction of forces without a directing intelligence.
- adjective Obtained by trial, by measurements, etc.; approximate; empirical. See the 2d Note under
Geometric . - adjective effective power; useful work exerted, as by a machine, in a definite time.
- adjective See the Note under
Engineering . - adjective (Mil.) the application of mechanical appliances to the mounting, dismounting, and moving of artillery.
- adjective the principles of mechanics applied to the investigation of physical phenomena.
- adjective certain simple instruments, such as the lever and its modifications (the wheel and axle and the pulley), the inclined plane with its modifications (the screw and the wedge), which convert a small force acting through a great space into a great force acting through a small space, or vice versa, and are used separately or in combination.
- adjective (Math.) a solution of a problem by any art or contrivance not strictly geometrical, as by means of the ruler and compasses, or other instruments.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Characteristic of someone who does
manual labour for a living;coarse ,vulgar . - adjective Related to
mechanics (the branch of physics that deals with forces acting on mass). - adjective Related to mechanics (the design and construction of
machines ). - adjective Done by
machine . - adjective Using mechanics (the design and construction of machines): being a machine.
- adjective As if performed by a machine:
lifeless ormindless . - adjective of a person Acting as if one were a machine: lifeless or mindless.
- adjective informal
Handy with machines.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective using (or as if using) mechanisms or tools or devices
- adjective relating to or concerned with machinery or tools
- adjective relating to or governed by or in accordance with mechanics
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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People have to go on what we call mechanical ventilation, the breathing machine.
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They're trained on that type of demolitions, or even what they call mechanical breaches to get in.
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American economy, and you had a gradual and constantly accelerating evolution of what we called the mechanical age, as distinct from the industrial age.
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Ostwald, who would replace what he terms a mechanical theory of the universe by an "energetical" theory, and would dwell exclusively on energy as opposed to its vehicles.
A Librarian's Open Shelf Arthur E. Bostwick
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On this day he started 3 under through the first five holes focused on what he called "mechanical thoughts" - shorthand for the swing changes he and coach Sean Foley have been working on.
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Citing what he called a mechanical problem with the brakes or a tire, Lyons swerved off the highway, hit a tree and flipped over several times before landing upside down on the embankment.
unknown title 2009
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(Notice that to critically describe a performance as "mechanical" is never, ever a good thing.)
All your compliments and your cutting remarks / Are captured here in my quotation marks Matthew Guerrieri 2008
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(Notice that to critically describe a performance as "mechanical" is never, ever a good thing.)
Archive 2008-09-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2008
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The leaks appeared to be coming from deteriorating seals within mechanical couplings installed between the 1950s and 1970s.
Development in once-rural areas put populations closer to natural gas pipelines Kimberly Lankford 2010
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Indeed, aesthetic experience itself is described by Richards entirely in mechanical terms, as the incidental phenomenon produced by the laws of cause and effect.
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