machine, machune

[Fr., from Latin machina , from Gr. mechane =a contrivance, a machine, from méchos = means, contrivance; Span. maquina ; Ital. mac china .] IMG:content-0802.png:[blocks in formation] 2590 also distinct from a tool, as it contains within itself its own guide for operation. A contrivance by means of which a moving power is made to act upon any body, and communicate motion to it. Machines are simple and compound, complex or complicated. The simple machines are the six mechanical powers: viz., the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the screw. In compound machines two or more of these powers are combined for the production of motion, or the application or transmi ion of force. Machines employed in the manufacturing arts are named according to their products, as lace-machines, rope-machines, paper-machines; or to the proce es they perform, as spinning-machines, print. ing-machines, sawing-machines, . Other machines are cla ed according to the forces by which they are put in motion, as hydraulic machines, pneumatic machines, . The powers employed to transmit or apply force machines are various, as the muscular strength of men or ani mals, wind, water, air, gas, electricity, steam, . "A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labor is most subdivided, were originally the inventions of common workmen."- Smith : Wealth of Nations , bk. i., ch. i. 2. An engine; a battering engine. 3. Any complicated body, in which the parts have their several duties or offices. "We are led to conceive this great machine of the world to have been once in a state of greater simplicity."- Bur net: Theory of the Earth. II. Figuratively : 1. An engine, a contrivance. "With inward arms the dire machine they load." Dryden: Virgil's Æneid, ii. 25. 2. A bicycle or tricycle. ( Colloquial .) "As we proceeded, the machine became more of an incumbrance."- Field , Dec. 6, 1884. 3. Any organization by means of which a desired effect is produced, or a system carried out; a complex system by which any institution is carried on; as, the machine of government, or a political party machine. 4. A term applied in contempt to one who acts or is willing to act at the will or bidding of another; a tool; one whose actions do not appear to be voluntary or under his own control, but to be directed by some external influence or agency; one who appears to act mechanically and without intelligence. 5. Supernatural agency introduced in a poem, play, or plot, to effect some object, or to perform some exploit; machinery.