Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Mechanics
/məˈkænɪks/noun
The branch of physics dealing with motion and the forces that produce it, or the working details of anything.
The Greek roots
μηχανή
mēkhanḗ
device, contrivance
Literally: “the art of contrivances”
Follow a root:μηχανή5 words
The story of the word
Μηχανή meant any cunning device, including the theatre crane that swung a god over the stage, which is where deus ex machina comes from. The word carries a flavour of trickery in Greek that survives in English machination. Aristotle's school produced a Mechanica on levers and balances; English adopted mechanics as the name of the science in the 1640s, and the loose sense, the mechanics of a deal, came later.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
machinemechanismmachinationmechanic
In a sentence
The mechanics of the handover were never explained to anyone below director level.