Etimology
Borrowed from Middle French machine, from Latin māchina (“a machine, engine, contrivance, device, stratagem, trick”), from Doric Greek μᾱχᾰνᾱ́ (mākhanā́), cognate with Attic Greek μηχᾰνή (mēkhanḗ, “a machine, engine, contrivance, device”), from which comes mechanical. Displaced native Old English searu.
noun
machine (plural machines)
A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.
(dated) A vehicle operated mechanically, such as an automobile or an airplane.
(telephony, abbreviation) An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.
(computing) A computer.
(figuratively) 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.
(poetry) Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
(politics, chiefly US) The system of special interest groups that supports a political party, especially in urban areas.
(euphemistic, obsolete) Penis.
(historical) 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.
(obsolete) A bathing machine.
Examples
An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.
As the aviator turned his machine to reconnoitre in the new direction, he was surprised to see the hostile aeroplane between him and his objective.
"Joe, how soon will you be ready to roll?" Frank Hardy burst into the garage where his brother was working on a sleek, black-and-silver motorcycle. "Right now, if this machine kicks over," Joe replied, putting down a wrench.
I called you earlier, but all I got was the machine.
Game developers assume they're pushing the limits of the machine.
He refuses to turn off his Linux machine.
Bruce Campbell was a "demon-killing machine" because he made quick work of killing demons.
The government has become a money-making machine.
The whole machine of government, civil and religious, ought never to bear upon the people with a weight so oppressive
I am apt to think, that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid […]The spelling has been modernized.
The spelling has been modernized.
A machine politician cannot see why the straight ticket should not be voted by every citizen belonging to that party.
In essence, therefore, the right-fork strategy of the Democrats meant an alliance of the South with the political machines built on the non-Protestant immigrants in key Northeastern states.
He was thrust into a political maelstrom for which he was ill-prepared, and yet he was, most notably, the Chicago machine's political savior.
He now reſumes his attempts in more form: firſt he put one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in eaſe of it: then ſpreading my thighs, and placing himſelf ſtanding between them, made them reſt upon his hips: applying then the point of his machine to the ſlit, into which he ſought entrance;
One Machine only was provided for Bathers, the Limitted smoothness of the sands not extending widely enough to admit another.
Related words
synonyms
See also Thesaurus:machine
hyponyms
add value machine
bean machine
cigarette machine
excavating machine
finite state machine
Google machine
interlingual machine translation
jet machine
knitting machine
liquid state machine
machine intelligence
nondeterministic Turing machine
paper machine
pinball machine
poker machine
rowing machine
sewing machine
simple machine
slot machine
smoke machine
tamping machine
ticket machine
tunnel boring machine
vending machine
virtual machine
washing machine
watch timing machine
watch-timing machine
welding machine
verb
machine (third-person singular simple present machines, present participle machining, simple past and past participle machined)
To make by machinery.
To shape or finish by machinery; (usually, more specifically) to shape subtractively by metal-cutting with machine-controlled toolpaths.
Examples
Engineering materials have been recently developed whose hardness and strength are considerably increased, such that the cutting speed and the MRR tend to fall when machining such materials using traditional methods like turning, milling, grinding, and so on.