mechanization

American  

[mek-uh-nahy-zey-shuhn] / ˌmɛk ə naɪˈzeɪ ʃən /

especially British, mechanisation

noun

1. the act or process of causing a task to be performed or operated by machinery.

   The mechanization of cinnamon processing has also solved health and sanitation issues plaguing the industry.

2. the act or process of introducing machines into an industry or other area of activity in order to replace human labor.

   Hay loaders are another example of the increasing mechanization of agriculture.

3. the act or process of subordinating the spiritual to the material, or of explaining something totally in terms of material forces.

   There is a vague unease with the artificiality of technology, with its imperialistic mechanization of a world from which we ourselves feel strangely alien.

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Other Word Forms

• antimechanization
  noun

Etymology

Origin of mechanization

mechaniz(e) ( def. ) + -ation

Explanation

The process of beginning to use machines, technology, and automation to do work is called mechanization. A farm's mechanization might include replacing a horse-drawn plow with a gas-powered tractor. Your candy-making business might start in your kitchen, where you make truffles by hand, shaping each individual chocolate yourself. Mechanization could mean having them made on an assembly line. Throughout history, mechanization has meant faster production and increased revenue, though it can also result in the loss of jobs. Mechanization can be traced back to the Greek mekhanikos, "inventive or ingenious" and also "pertaining to machines."

Example Sentences

Mechanization set the stage for the Industrial Revolution, a transition away from societies focused on agriculture and handicraft production to socioeconomic systems dominated by the manufacture of goods, primarily with machines.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

Mechanization has brought the share down to about 1 percent today.

From Washington Post • Sep. 8, 2022

Mechanization brought tractors and combine harvesters, which were initially used for grains, such as wheat, rye, oats, and barley.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 8, 2019

Mechanization and large, industrial-scale farms in North America and Europe had raised productivity to about 1 to 2 million kilograms of cereals per farmer.

From Salon • Feb. 1, 2019

Mechanization most drastically altered life on the family farm.

From Frying Pan Farm by Pryor, Elizabeth Brown

Related Words

• computerization
• industrialization