| 释义 |
machinery|məˈʃiːnərɪ|
Also 8 machinary.
[f. machine n. + -ery. Cf. F. machinerie.]
1. Theatr. and literary.
†a. Stage appliances and contrivances. (Cf. machine n. 6.) Obs. exc. as in 2.
b. The assemblage of ‘machines’ (machine n. 7) employed in a poem; supernatural personages and incidents introduced in narrative or dramatic poetry.
1687Winstanley Lives Poets 216 Vying with the Opera's of Italy, in the Pomp of Scenes, Marchinry [sic] and Musical performance. 1713Steele Englishman No. 52. 336 His Machinary is not a Jargon of Heathenism and Christianity. 1714Pope Rape Lock Ded., The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons, are made to act in a Poem. 1756–82J. Warton Ess. Pope (ed. 4) I. iv. 226 The insertion of the machinery of the sylphs..is one of the happiest efforts of judgment and art. 1799H. More Fem. Educ. (ed. 4) I. 40 Those who most earnestly deny the immortality of the soul are most eager to introduce the machinery of ghosts. 1848A. Jameson Sacr. & Leg. Art (1850) 129 The angels always allowable as machinery, have here a particular propriety. 1861E. O'Curry Lect. MS. Materials Irish Hist. 242 The rules of these compositions permitted the introduction of a certain amount of poetic machinery.
2. Machines, or the constituent parts of a machine, taken collectively; the mechanism or ‘works’ of a machine or machines.
1731in Bailey vol. II. 1765 A. Dickson Treat. Agric. (ed. 2) 219 The more machinery there is in any instrument, it is the more liable to be broken. 1776Adam Smith W. N. i. xi. (1869) I. 256 In consequence of better machinery..a much smaller quantity of labour becomes requisite. 1803Med. Jrnl. IX. 291 The communication is then formed and interrupted alternately by means of machinery. 1872Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 180 Lock-making was undoubtedly the parent of much of our machinery. 1878Jevons Prim. Pol. Econ. 73 Spinning machinery, which can do an immense quantity of work compared with the number of hands employed.
b. transf. and fig.
1770Junius Lett. xl. 206 note, Luttrell,..for whom the whole machinery is put in motion, becomes adjutant-general. 1788Gibbon Decl. & F. l. (1846) V. 12 The nice and artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman republics. 1818Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) I. 461 The terrible and odious machinery of a police. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xiv. III. 409 The whole machinery of government was out of joint. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. iv. (1878) 65 She [Nature] can act on the whole machinery of life. 1876Freeman Norm. Conq. V. xxiv. 464 Nor does the machinery of the court seem to have been greatly altered.
c. A system or a kind of machinery. lit. and fig.
1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. I. 290 The beacons..were regarded rather as curious relics of ancient manners than as parts of a machinery necessary to the safety of the state. 1864Spectator 438 The County franchise..is..a machinery for returning anybody the local peers choose to nominate. 1866Carlyle Remin. (1881) I. 138 Little..sea villages, with their..rude innocent machineries.
3. attrib.
1887Daily News 8 July 2/5 There is now..a machinery hall, an agricultural hall, and an armoury. 1898Engineering Mag XVI. 100 A machinery installation..should be one source of energy. |