machinator (mak in at or)

[= F. machina teur = Sp. Pg. maquinador = It. mac china tore, He hath become an active and earnest agitator, a murmurer and a machinator . Scott , Ivanhoe, xxxv. machine (ma-shēn'), n. [=D. machine = G. ma schine Dan. maskine = Sw.mask in , máquina = Pg. maquina , machina = It . mac china = Turk. makina , machina , a machine, engine, contrivance, device, stratagem, trick, μηχανή , a machine, engine, contrivance, device; cf. μῆχος , means. Perhaps akin to AS. macian , E. make : see makel . Cf. mechan ic, etc.] 1. An engine; an instrument of force. With inward arms the dire machine [wooden horse] they load. Dryden, Æneid, ii. 25. 2. In mech., in general, any instrument for the conversion of motion. Thus, a machine may be designed to change rapid motion into slow motion, as a crowbar; or it may be intended to convert a reciprocating rectilinear motion into a uniform circular motion, etc. The lever, the wedge, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the screw, and the inclined plane are termed the simple machines. In practical mechanics the word has a restricted meaning: a single device, as a hammer, chisel, crowbar, or saw, or a very simple combination of moving parts, as tongs, shears, pincers, etc., for manual use, although comprised in the strict technical definition of machine, is always called a tool (which see); a device for applying or converting natural molar motion, like that of falling water, or of winds (as a water-wheel or windmill), or for converting molecular motion into molar motion (as a steam-engine, gas engine, air-engine, or electric engine), is more generally, 3560 though not uniformly, called a motor. The distinction between the words tool and machine becomes quite indefinite with increased complication of parts. Such machines as are used in shaping materials in the construction of the parts of other machines, and many of those which perform work, such as sawing, boring, planing, riveting, etc., formerly done only by hand and still performed manually to a greater or le extent, are variously called machines, machine-tools, engine-tools, or simply tools, although their structure may involve much complexity; the terms machine-tool and engine - tool are more frequently employed, the latter being preferable as being more in accord with best usage. Machines receive general or special names from the work they perform or are designed to execute, either with reference to departments of the arts or of industry, as agricultural machines, hydraulic machines, wood- working machines, etc., or to their specific work, as planing -machines, sawing-machines, mowing - machines, etc. This science will define a machine to be, not, as usual, an instrument by means of which we may change the direction and intensity of a given force, but an instrument by means of which we may change the direction and velocity of a given motion. Ampère, tr. by Will is. 3. A vehicle or conveyance, such as a coach, cab, gig, tricycle, bicycle, etc. [Great Brit ain.] IMG:content-0025.jpg:[blocks in formation] Thackeray , Virgin i ans, lxii. 4. A fire-engine. [Colloq., U. S.]-5. In the ancient theater, one of a number of contrivances in use for indicating a change of scene, as a rotating prism with different conventional scenery painted on its three sides, or a device for exp expre ing a descent to the infernal regions, as the "Char on i an steps,"," for representing the pa age of a god god through the air acro the stage (whence the dictum deus ex machina, applied to the mock supernatural or providential), etc. Such machines were very numerous in the fully developed Greek theater, and were copied in the Roman. Juno and Iris descend in different Machines: Juno in a Chariot drawn by Peacocks; Iris on a Rainbow. Congreve, Semele, ii. 1. IMG:content-0026.png:[blocks in formation] P The human body, like all living bodies, is a machine , all the operations of which will, sooner or later, be explained on physical principles. Huxley , Lay Sermons, p. 339. 8. A strict organization of the working members of a political party, which enables its managers, through the distribution of offices, careful local supervision, and systematic correspondence, to maintain control of conventions and elections, and to secure a predominating influence in the party for themselves and their a ociates for their own ends; also, the body of managers of such an organization. [U. S.] - Atwood's machine, an apparatus for illustrating uniformly accelerated motion, consisting of a pulley-wheel turning with very slight friction in a vertical plane and carrying a cord with equal weights suspended from its ends. In the common experiment there is an exce of weight at one end of the cord, due to a plate which rests on the weight and is caught when the latter pa es through a fixed ring; the weight is set free from a state of rest at a measured position above this ring, so that the acceleration takes place through a known distance; and the velocity per second after the removal of the exce of weight is observed to be proportional to the square root of the distance through which the acceleration takes place. The machine is named from its inventor, George Atwood (17461807), an English mathematician.Bulldog machine, a combined sounding and dredging-machine invented during the voyage of H. M. S. Bulldog in 1860, under the command of Sir Francis Leopold M'Clintock. It is an adap 0 Atwood's Machine. tation of Sir John Ro 's deep-sea clam, with the addition of Brooke's principle of the disengaging weight. The chief credit of the invention is given to Mr. Steil, a istant eng i. neer on board the Bulldog. - Centrifugal machine. See centrifugal. - Duck machine, in Cornwall, a kind of ventilating-machine on the same principle as the ordinary blowing-engine, furnished with a piston and valves, and usually worked by the pump-rod. Also called Hartz blower. - Dynamo-electric machine. See electric machine, under electric. Effect of a machine. See effect. - Electric, funicular, geo cyclic machine. See the adjectives.Extemporizing-machine. See extemporize. - Holtz machine. See electric machine, under electric. - Hungarian, hydro-electric, infernal, etc., machine. See the adjectives. - Logical machine, a machine which, being fed with premises, produces the nece ary conclusions from them. The earliest instrument of this kind was the demonstrator of Charles, third Earl Stanhope: the most perfect is that of Profe or Allan Marquand, which gives all inferences turning upon the logical relations of cla es. The value of logical machines seems to lie in their showing how far reasoning is a mechanical proce , and how far it calls for acts of observation. Calculating-machines are specialized logical machines. - Reduced inertia of a machine, according to Rankine, the weight which, concentrated at the driving-point, would have the same energy as the machine itself. - To run with the machine, to accompany a fire-engine to a fire, either as a member of the fire-company or as a hanger-on: a phrase used when the members of fire-companies (in large cities) were volunteers, and service at fires was gratuitous. [U. S.] machine (ma-shēn'), v.; pret. and pp. та chined, ppr. machining. [ IMG:content-0027.jpg:[graphic] Cf. This side then serves as a basis from which the body may be machined square and true. 3. To furnish with the machinery of a plot. W. W. Greener, The Gun, p. 240. It is not, as a story, very cunningly machined . The Academy, June 1, 1889, p. 374. II. in trans. 1. To be employed upon or in machinery.-2. To act as or in the machinery of a drama; serve as the machine or effective agency in a literary plot. The stage with rushes or with leaves they strew'd; No scenes in prospect, no machining god. Dryden, tr. of Ovid's Art of Love, i. 120.