deus ex machina
Americannoun
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(in ancient Greek and Roman drama) a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot.
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any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot.
noun
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(in ancient Greek and Roman drama) a god introduced into a play to resolve the plot
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any unlikely or artificial device serving this purpose
Etymology
Origin of deus ex machina
1690–1700; < New Latin literally, god from a machine (i.e., stage machinery from which a deity's statue was lowered), as translation of Greek apò mēchanês theós (Demosthenes), theòs ek mēchanês (Menander), etc.
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.
For Apple, as for Jobs, the whole episode involved the kind of deus ex machina you could never get away with in fiction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
Jeeves is a deus ex machina; we learn almost nothing about him, except for imperturbability and skill at solving the crises that Bertie falls into through his pure cloth-headedness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
With truth under assault and accountability seemingly non-existent, a billion-dollar bullhorn sharing micro-targeted messages on multiple platforms may not be an ideal deus ex machina, but it is the one our info-siloed public square demands.
From Salon ● Apr. 6, 2024
After the recitation of an ancient Roman novel falls apart, what deus ex machina could save the show?
From New York Times ● Jan. 14, 2024
I’m still fantasizing that a deus ex machina will descend from the heavens to resolve the situation.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
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.
