machinery
machinery is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 3 senses, and appears in Roget's Thesaurus (1911) with 38 related terms. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.
Definitions
- 1.The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as, the machinery of a watch.
- 2.The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or fictitious work is carried on and brought to a catastrophe; in an extended sense, the contrivances by which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious narrative, in prose or verse, are effected. The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem. Pope.
- 3.The means and appliances by which anything is kept in action or a desired result is obtained; a complex system of parts adapted to a purpose. An indispensable part of the machinery of state. Macaulay. The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan languages. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).
Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
Synonyms
Related terms (Roget's 1911)
- agency
- aid
- all
- anchor
- and
- any
- assistance
- bow
- capital
- find
- have
- herewith
- how
- instrumental
- instrumentality
- locker
- manner
- mechanical
- medium
- money
- play
- possess
- provision
- revenue
- safety
- sheet
- shot
- some
- stock
- the
- therewith
- through
- trade
- two
- what
- wherewith
- wherewithal
- with
Source: Roget's Thesaurus, 1911 edition (public domain, via Project Gutenberg eBook #10681).
Related questions
Reverse-dictionary questions
Definition-first questions whose answer is machinery.
Sources
- Definitions: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
- Synonyms: Roget's Thesaurus, 1911 edition (public domain, via Project Gutenberg eBook #10681).
- Canonical URL: https://worddirectanswers.com/word/machinery
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