machinery
Americannoun
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an assemblage of machines or mechanical apparatuses.
the machinery of a factory.
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the parts of a machine, collectively.
the machinery of a watch.
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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
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a group of contrivances for producing stage effects.
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the group or aggregate of literary machines, especially those of supernatural agency epic machinery in an epic poem.
noun
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machines, machine parts, or machine systems collectively
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a particular machine system or set of machines
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a system similar to a machine
the machinery of government
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literary devices used for effect in epic poetry
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of machinery
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.
Vocabulary lists containing machinery
Engineering - Introductory
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Mechanical Engineering
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Engineering - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The government investigation stems from a previously sealed whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2022 against First Brands, its Brake Parts and Centric Parts divisions, as well as a Chinese subsidiary, Longkou Haimeng Machinery.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 26, 2026
The study was published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.
From Science Daily • Apr. 19, 2026
Machinery breaks down and sits idle for months because parts can’t be imported or paid for through normal banking channels.
From Salon • Apr. 11, 2026
Swarmer said that “substantially all” of its revenue over the last two years was from a single company in Ukraine: Smart Machinery Solutions.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 18, 2026
Banners and flags and gonfalons suddenly bellied from every cornice, a huge red banner unscrolled along the full length of the Machinery Building, and the canvas slipped from Big Mary’s gold-leaf shoulders.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
