Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Machine
/məˈʃiːn/noun
A constructed device that applies power to do work.
The Greek roots
μηχανή
mēkhanḗ
device, contrivance
Literally: “a means, a contrivance”
Follow a root:μηχανή5 words
The story of the word
μηχανή is closer to expedient than to engine: a trick, a way round a difficulty, related to μῆχος, a remedy. Athenian theatres owned a literal one, the crane that swung an actor playing a god over the stage, and Greek critics were already complaining about the ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός before Latin gave us deus ex machina. Romans borrowed the Doric form μαχανά rather than the Attic, which is why the Latin is machina with an a.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1540s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
mechanicmechanismmachinationmechatronics
In a sentence
The machine jams every time somebody loads it past the line.