MACHINERY

machinery

(noun) machines or machine systems collectively

machinery

(noun) a system of means and activities whereby a social institution functions; “the complex machinery of negotiation”; “the machinery of command labored and brought forth an order”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Noun

machinery (countable and uncountable, plural machinery)

The machines constituting a production apparatus, in a plant etc, collectively.

The working parts of a machine as a group.

The collective parts of something which allow it to function.

(figuratively) The literary devices used in a work, notably for dramatic effect

Anagrams

• hemicrany

Source: Wiktionary

Ma*chin"er*y, n. Etym: [From Machine: cf. F. machinerie.]

1. Machines, in general, or collectively.

2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as, the machinery of a watch.

3. 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.

4. 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