Mechanic
/məˈkænɪk/noun
Someone who repairs and maintains machines, especially engines.
The Greek roots
Literally: “one skilled with devices”
The story of the word
Μηχανή is a contrivance, and in the theatre it was one contrivance in particular, the crane that swung a god over the stage, which is the machina in deus ex machina. Aristotle's school produced a treatise on μηχανικά, the tricks by which a small force shifts a large weight. English had mechanic first as an adjective for that science and only from the 1560s as a name for the man with the tools; it long carried a second sense of low or vulgar, which is how Shakespeare uses the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1560s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
The mechanic listened to the engine for ten seconds and named the part.