machinery

American  

[muh-shee-nuh-ree] / məˈʃi nə ri /

noun

• machineries
  plural

1. an assemblage of machines or mechanical apparatuses.

   the machinery of a factory.

2. the parts of a machine, collectively.

   the machinery of a watch.

3. a group of people or a system by which action is maintained or by which some result is obtained.

   the machinery of government.

   Synonyms:

   setup, structure, organization

4. a group of contrivances for producing stage effects.

5. the group or aggregate of literary machines, especially those of supernatural agency epic machinery in an epic poem.

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machinery British  

/ məˈʃiːnərɪ /

noun

1. machines, machine parts, or machine systems collectively

2. a particular machine system or set of machines

3. a system similar to a machine

   the machinery of government

4. literary devices used for effect in epic poetry

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• antimachinery
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• machineries
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of machinery

First recorded in 1680–90; machine + -ery

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Explanation

Machinery refers to specific machines or machines in general. A farmer has lots of farm machinery, like tractors and plows. Machinery is also the inner workings of something — the machinery of a society is how a society works. You can refer to a group of machines as machinery, such as the machinery in a factory or the machinery in a laboratory. It’s also the inner workings of a particular machine, like the machinery that keeps your computer running. Machinery has to do with how something works or functions. The government, media, business, and family are all part of the machinery of society. The word machinery originally referred to the devices used for creating stage effects in the theater.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

machinery machineries

The researchers selected this environment because its microorganisms already possess the biological machinery needed to break down complex natural materials.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

Goods trade in the eurozone swung to a deficit in August as weaker machinery and vehicle commerce and higher energy imports weighed on the balance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

To find the biological machinery behind this unusual behavior, Lerner extracted DNA from the entire community of microorganisms living in the soil samples.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

"Previously, transporting heavy cargo such as industrial machinery, raw materials, construction materials and energy-related supplies required extreme caution because of safety concerns surrounding the ageing bridge," Lim told AFP.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

He had been working on the machinery of the swings and had stopped to get a glass of water.

From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers

For the first time, the researchers could see how different combinations of modifications are "read" and translated by the protein machineries in our cells.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2024

Export growth of machineries and hi-tech products were strong.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 7, 2021

Something is broken in our system if the machineries of war endure all strategies and policy changes, if only for the sake of enduring.

From New York Times ● Dec. 29, 2018

It should also cause us to ask hard questions about our “technologies” of research ethics—the machineries of evaluation that experiments must pass through.

From Slate ● Dec. 4, 2018

It is all clangings and bangings as tiles are spat out by big machineries onto what is called a conveyor belt.

From "Beast Rider" by Tony Johnston & María Elena Fontanot de Rhoads

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Related Words

• apparatus
• appliance
• engine
• equipment
• gear
• instrument
• motor
• system
• tool
• utensil
• vehicle

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