| 释义 |
mechanical, a. and n.|mɪˈkænɪkəl|
[f. late L. mēchanic-us: see prec. and -ical.]
A. adj.
1. Of arts, trades, occupations: Concerned with machines or tools. Hence,
a. Concerned with the contrivance and construction of machines or mechanism.
1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) VII. 73 Certeyne instrumentes of his makynge made by arte mechanicalle, and specially organes. 1626Bacon New Atl. 38 Wee haue also diuerse Mechanicall Arts, which you haue not; and Stuffes made by them; as Papers, Linnen [etc.]. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) IV. 395 Those who are fond of mechanical arts, manufactures, &c. 1815J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 124 To make any useful proficiency in mechanical pursuits. 1872Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 367 Machine-making..belongs to a high order of mechanical art.
b. Concerned with manual operations; of the nature of handicraft.
c1450Lydg. & Burgh Secrees 2097 Whoom his ffadir..Boonde and dysposyd to crafft mechanycalle. 1477Norton Ord. Alch. iv. in Ashm. Theat. Chem. Brit. (1652) 49 Handie-crafte called Arte Mechanicall. 1586A. Day Eng. Secretary ii. (1625) 106 A seruant, meanly trained in some Mechanicall Science. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. To King §13 Arts Mechanicall contract Brotherhoods in communalties. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey) title-p., The Arts and Sciences, either Liberal or Mechanical. 1753Hogarth Anal. Beauty 4 Many other little circumstances belonging to the mechanical part of the art. 1834Macaulay Ess., Pitt. (1899) 288 Almost every mechanical employment..has a tendency to injure some one or other of the bodily organs of the artisan. 1837–9[see illiberal a. 1]. 1841Emerson Method Nat. Wks. (Bohn) II. 220, I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also.
†c. transf. Pertaining to the mere technicalities of a profession or art. Obs.
a1648Ld. Herbert Hen. VIII (1683) 325 Other Laws also were enacted, which for being meerly legal, and there fore relative chiefly to the Masters of the Law, or otherwise Mechanical, or at least so particular that they belong, not properly to History. 1681Nevile Plato Rediv. 103 The Mechanical part of their Callings (which is to assist Clients with Counsel, and to plead their Causes). a1763Shenstone Ess. (1765) 5 The vulgar may not indeed be capable of giving the reasons why a composition pleases them. That mechanical distinction they leave to the connoisseur.
2. a. Of persons: Engaged in manual labour; belonging to the artisan class. Now rare. † Hence, characteristic of this class, mean, vulgar (obs.).
1589Late Voy. Sp. & Port. (1881) 102 Wherein mechanicall and men of base condition doo dare to censure the dooings of them, of whose acts they be not worthie to talke. 1591Horsey Trav. (Hakl. Soc.) App. 302 Thearby [sc. by commerce] your marchantes growe riche, your mecanycall people sette a worke. 1597Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, v. v. 38 Hall'd thither by most Mechanicall and durty hand. 1646Earl of Monmouth tr. Biondi's Civil Warres ix. 182 Born at Corneto a poor village in Toscany, of mean mechanical parentage. 1695Cibber Love's Last Shift iii, 'Tis mechanical to marry the Woman you love; Men of Quality should always marry those they never saw. 1730Fielding Author's Farce i. v, These are represented as mean and mechanical, and the others as honourable and glorious. 1830Galt Lawrie T. v. ii, Settlers of the mechanical orders. 1880E. White Cert. Relig. 31 Among the peasantry and mechanical orders.
†b. Occupied with or skilled in the practical application of an art or science; practical as opposed to speculative. Obs.
1570Dee Math. Pref. a iij b, A speculative Mechanicien..differreth nothyng from a Mechanicall Mathematicien. 1633T. Stafford Pac. Hib. iii. viii. (1810) 567 If they had been as good Mechanicall Cannoniers, as they were Commaunders.
3.
†a. Of the nature of a machine or machines (obs.).
b. In modern use: Acting, worked, or produced by a machine or mechanism: often in contrast to what is produced by hand-labour.
1567J. Maplet Gr. Forest 2 Albeston is a stone of Archadie..whereof in olde time was built that kind of worke Mechanicall. 1579–80North Plutarch, Marcellus (1595) 335 Instruments and engines (which are called mechanicall, or organicall). 1648Bp. Wilkins Math. Magick ii. vi. 191 The volant or flying Automata are such Mechanicall contrivances, as have a self-motion [etc.]. 1839Penny Cycl. XV. 49/1 The centre of gravity might by mechanical means be made to rise continually higher. 1860Faraday Lect. Forces Matter 170 An instrument wrought only by mechanical motion. 1875G. J. Whyte-Melville Riding Recoll. vi. (1879) 98 The mechanical horse exhibited in Piccadilly some ten or twelve years ago. 1902Daily Chron. 7 Apr. 3/2 The invention and practical perfectioning of the mechanical pianoforte player.
c. mechanical powers or † mechanicalfaculties: the six ‘simple machines’. (Cf. mechanic a. 4 b.)
1648Bp. Wilkins Math. Magick i. iii, Of the first Mechanical faculty, the Ballance. 1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., The mechanical powers, are the balance, lever, wheel, pully, wedge, and screw.
d. mechanical drawing: drawing performed with the help of instruments, as compasses, rulers, etc. mechanical construction (of curves): construction by the use of some apparatus, as distinguished from ‘tracing’ by calculation of successive points.
1842–59Gwilt Archit. §995 Practical Geometry..has been defined as the art which directs the mechanical processes for finding the position of points, lines, surfaces [etc.].
e. mechanical (wood) pulp (see quot. 1926).
1888Cross & Bevan Text-bk. Paper-Making vi. 105 Mechanical Wood Pulp.—A very large quantity of pulp is used in the commoner kinds of paper, such as cheap news, etc., which is obtained by disintegrating wood by mechanical means alone. 1890A. Watt Art of Paper-Making x. 113 Mechanical wood pulp is also used in a moderate degree. 1926Paper Terminol. (Spalding & Hodge) ii. 17 Mechanical wood, the lowest grade of wood pulp prepared by the purely mechanical process of grinding. 1936Economist 8 Feb. 304/1 Of sulphate as well as of mechanical pulp, both annual production and stocks have been sold out. 1937[see ground ppl. a. 4]. 1953Economist 26 Sept. 883/1 Mechanical pulp, from which newsprint is made, is about 10s. a dry ton higher [than chemical pulp]. 1963R. R. A. Higham Handbk. Paper-Making v. 129 Mechanical pulp is an important cheap grade used in the manufacture of papers such as newsprint, wallpaper, [etc.].
f. mechanical twin (Metallurgy): a twinned crystal produced by mechanical deformation; so mechanical twinning.
1913Engineering 10 Oct. 510/3 There is now good reason to doubt that mechanical twinning ever occurs in metals. 1923Glazebrook Dict. Appl. Physics V. 344/1 These internal stresses cause internal straining of the metal, which in turn causes the formation of numerous mechanical twins. 1935G. E. Doan Princ. Physical Metall. iii. 77 In mechanical twinning, each atom moves a certain distance relative to the neighboring plane. 1966McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. VIII. 293/1 Typical phenomena observable are...effects of deformation—strain markings,..mechanical twins, and microcracks. 1966W. J. McG. Tegart Elem. Mech. Metall. v. 121 Another important mode of deformation is that of mechanical twinning.
4. Of persons, their actions, etc.: Resembling (inanimate) machines or their operations; acting or performed without the exercise of thought or volition; lacking spontaneity or originality; machine-like; automatic.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 271 Our Mechanical Horse Farriars, who cure many times what they know not, and kill where they might cure, knew they the cause. 1663Bp. Patrick Parab. Pilgr. xxi. (1668) 210 The Mechanical Christian will here find himself to be dead and void of Christ. 1711Steele Spect. No. 152 ⁋2 None of these Men of Mechanical Courage have ever made any great Figure in the Profession of Arms. 1766Goldsm. Vic. W. iv, I always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good breeding. 1788Reid Active Powers iii. v. 613 The one we may for distinctions sake, call mechanical government, the other moral. 1818Hazlitt Eng. Poets ii. 64 Versification is a thing in a great degree mechanical. 1841Myers Cath. Th. iii. §36. 131 Is not the notion of a mechanical rule—a rule ever ready and ever applicable—in spiritual things, altogether out of place? 1871Morley Condorcet in Crit. Misc. Ser. i. (1878) 66 The official religion of the century was lifeless and mechanical.
5. a. Of agencies, operations, and principles: Such as belong to the subject-matter of mechanics; in modern use often opposed to chemical. mechanical equivalent of heat: see equivalent n. 2 c.
1626Bacon Sylva §98 The Cause of all Flight of Bodies thorow the Aire, and of other Mechanicall Motions. 1662Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. iii. ii. §1 To explain the Origine of the Universe..meerly by the Mechanical Laws of the motion of matter. 1698J. Keill Exam. Th. Earth Introd. (1734) 17 The World..did exist from all eternity, without any change, or alteration, but such as happened from pure Mechanical principles, and causes. 1805–17R. Jameson Char. Min. (ed. 3) 151 If we have recourse to mechanical division, in order to obtain the cubic nucleus from this kind of octahedron. 1839Penny Cycl. XV. 291/1 Liquid medicines consisting of several ingredients..in a state of mechanical suspension in some viscid medium. 1842–59Gwilt Archit. Gloss., Mechanical Carpentry. That branch of carpentry which relates to the disposition of the timbers of a building in respect of their relative strength and the strains to which they are subjected. 1863Tyndall Heat i. §9 (1870) 8 The sea is rendered warmer by a storm, the mechanical dash of its billows being..converted into heat. Mod. Common air is a mechanical mixture, not a chemical compound.
fig.1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) II. 201 The distinction between the mere mechanical cohesion of sounds or words and the chemical combination of them into a new word.
b. Geol. Applied to formations in which the ingredients have undergone no alteration in their chemical constitution or molecular structure.
1833Lyell Princ. Geol. III. Gloss. 73 Mechanical Origin, Rocks of. When rocks are composed of sand, pebbles, or fragments, to distinguish them from those of an uniform crystalline texture, which are of chemical origin. 1878Huxley Physiogr. xvii. 293 The mere mechanical detritus of siliceous rocks.
6. Of theories and their advocates: Explaining phenomena by the assumption of mechanical action.
1692Bentley Boyle Lect. v. 145 The Mechanical Atheist. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Mechanical Philosophy, is the same with the Corpuscular, which endeavours to explicate the Phænomena of Nature from Mechanical Principles. 1707Floyer Pulse Watch I. ii. ii. 205 Which Method of Physic is both Mechanical and Philosophical. 1771T. Percival Ess. (1777) I. 21 The mechanical hypothesis concerning the operation of medicines, which is supposed to depend upon the size, figure, and gravity of their constituent particles. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. i. 5 The mechanical theory of slaty cleavage. 1880Huxley in Nature No. 615. 345 The mechanical physiologists, who regarded these operations as the result of the mechanical properties of the small vessels, such as the size, form, and disposition of their canals and apertures.
7. Concerned with or involving material objects or physical conditions.
1664Power Exp. Philos. 104, I have an Experiment in Banco which will give some Mechanical Evidence of this great Mystery. 1665Glanvill Def. Vanity Dogm. 28 There are Mechanical difficulties in the way of his Solutions. 1675Traherne Chr. Ethics 148 In physical goodness there is a mechanical fitness, and dead convenience. 1860Mill Repr. Govt. (1865) 4/1 Besides these moral hindrances, mechanical difficulties are often an insuperable impediment to forms of government.
8. a. Pertaining to mechanics as a science.
1648Bp. Wilkins Math. Magick i. i. 3 Art may be said..to overcome, and advance nature, as in these Mechanicall disciplines. 1827Jamieson (title) A Dictionary of Mechanical Science. 1861W. Fairbairn Pres. Addr. to Brit. Assoc. p. lviii, The mechanical sciences..may be divided into Theoretical Mechanics and Dynamics..and Applied Mechanics.
b. Having to do with machinery.
1793Smeaton Edystone L. §122 Subjects of mechanical invention and investigation. 1863Fawcett Pol. Econ. i. iv. (1876) 33 The foremost mechanical genius of this mechanical age is devoted to the production of weapons of death. 1881Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 42 Mechanical Engineer, Inventor, Draughtsman, Student. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 669 The great inferiority of the African to the European lies in the matter of mechanical idea.
c. mechanical advantage (of a machine): the ratio of the load to the force applied to the machine; mechanical zero (see quot. 19712).
1894W. J. Lineham Textbk. Mech. Engin. ix. 481 The first is the principle of virtual velocities, and the second mechanical advantage. 1962A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio v. 94 A reversed-reading instrument is used: it has its mechanical zero at the right-hand end of the scale and is deflected back to the scale zero (its ‘electrical zero’) by a steady current. 1971B. Scharf Engin. & Its Lang. ix. 68 To calculate the efficiency of a machine we divide the real mechanical advantage by the ideal mechanical advantage and multiply the result by 100%. 1971Gloss. Electrotechnical, Power, Terms (B.S.I.) i. iv. 9 Mechanical zero, equilibrium position which the index will approach when the measuring element..is de-energized.
9. Math.
a. Applied to curves not expressible by equations of finite and rational algebraical form; = transcendental.
So called as admitting of production only by ‘mechanical construction’: see 3 d.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Curve, These [sc. transcendental] curves, Des Cartes, &c. call mechanical ones. 1743Emerson Fluxions ii. 139 Mechanical or transcendent curves. 1847J. Dwyer Princ. & Pract. Hydraulic Eng. 75 A cycloid..is a mechanical curve of..curious properties.
b. mechanical solution (of a problem): see quot.
1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Mechanical Solution of a Problem in Mathematicks, is either when the Thing is done by repeated Tryals, or when the Lines made use of to solve it are not truly Geometrical.
10. Comb., as mechanical-minded adj.
1947J. Steinbeck Wayward Bus xvii. 223, I suppose people really think they are mechanical-minded.
B. n.
1. = mechanic B. 2. arch. (as echo of Shakes.).
1590Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 9 A crew of patches, rude Mechanicals, That worke for bread vpon Athenian stals. 1603Holland Plutarch's Mor. 211 These covetous misers gather wealth together like mightie magnificoes, but they spend like beggerly mechanicals. 1647Lilly Chr. Astrol. clx. 676 It..expresseth in Mechanicals, great Custome and Trade; in men otherwise qualified, Preferment, Office. 1830Westm. Rev. XIII. 211 Socrates! we hear all the vulgar mechanicals exclaim,..a poor, mean, pitiful, pennyless fellow! 1963Times 20 Apr. 4/1 The play scene is omitted and the rest of the mechanicals, a couple of fellows boldly designated on the programme as ‘Bottom's Friends’, are left deliberately vague. 1968Listener 1 Feb. 148 Frivolity seems to me the only, precarious excuse for this novel—a let-out, for instance, for treating the income-earning group as characters and the rest as ‘mechanicals’.
2. pl.
†a. The science which relates to the construction of machines. Obs.
1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. xxi. §6 In mechanicalls, the direction how to frame an Instrument or Engyne, is not the same with the manner of setting it on woorke.
b. Details of mechanical construction. rare.
1821T. G. Wainewright Ess. & Crit. (1880) 146 This class of subjects demands the greatest attention to mechanicals. 1843Lytton Last Bar. i. ix, ‘They were indifferently well wrought, specially a chevesail, of which the’—‘Spare me the fashion of thy mechanicals, and come to the point’, interrupted Marmaduke.
3. Printing. The artwork and ‘copy’ as finally assembled. Also transf.
1967V. Strauss Printing Industry xi. 744/2 At its simplest, the mechanical is a piece of artists' illustration board, somewhat larger than the final size of the printed piece. To this board are attached, by cementing or pasting.., a number of line images, all in the same focus and, of course, of inspected quality. This board bears, furthermore, all notations that will enable it to serve as the blueprint of the job. 1967Karch & Buber Offset Processes iii. 47 This final assembly of reading matter and artwork for the printer is called a mechanical. 1967Britannica Bk. of Year (U.S.) 66 Many regulations, particularly in relation to TV, prevented advertisers from using international campaigns if the basic mechanicals—artwork, films, and so on—were not produced in Italy by Italians. 1973Publishers Weekly 12 Mar. 38 The layout [of an advertisement] was changed at the last minute, and the mechanical bearing [the publisher] Quadrangle's name either was not replaced, or it fell off.
▸ † mechanical printer n. Obs. rare a typewriter.
1876(title) The *mechanical printer (type-writer). 1890Cent. Dict. at Printer, Mechanical printer, a type-writer. |