| 释义 |
mechanically, adv.|mɪˈkænɪkəlɪ|
[f. mechanical a. + -ly2.]
1. By mechanical art, contrivance, or methods; by the use of machinery or instruments.
1570Dee Math. Pref. c ij b, Thus, may you Double your Cube Mechanically. Ibid. c iij, Though it be Naturally done and Mechanically: yet hath it a good Demonstration Mathematicall. 1656tr. Hobbes' Elem. Philos. (1839) 315 The ancients pronounced it impossible to exhibit in a plane the division of angles,..otherwise than mechanically. 1737Bracken Farriery Impr. (1749) I. 329 A silly Man carrying two Buckets of Water upon his Shoulders with a round Pole, instead of a flattish one hollowed and mechanically fitted to receive his Shoulders. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxix. 401 To lift her mechanically above her line of flotation. 1893Atlantic Monthly Feb. 192/2 Large crowds gathered in the mechanically flooded fields.
2. By mechanical (as opposed to chemical, vital, etc.) agencies or processes; as a mechanical agent; in respect of mechanical properties.
1684–5Boyle Min. Waters 23 Whether any thing..can be..discover'd..by Chymically and Mechanically examining the Mineral Earths [etc.]. 1691Ray Creation ii. (1704) 415 They suppose even the perfect Animals..to have been formed Mechanically among the rest. 1794Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 186 The calx and magnesia may be chemically combined with the argill, and not merely mechanically mixed as in marls. 1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 25 Being itself insolvable in any known menstruum, and acting mechanically only, it neither destroys nor is destructible. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xxv. 177 The dust and thin smoke mechanically suspended in a London atmosphere.
3. As by machinery or mechanical action; without spontaneous or conscious exercise of will or thought; automatically.
1692Bentley Boyle Lect. 202 If atoms formed the world according to the essential properties of bulk, figure, and motion, they formed it mechanically; and if they formed it mechanically without perception and design, they formed it casually. 1741tr. D'Argens' Chinese Lett. xiii. 85 With Men who act in a Manner mechanically, who behave so and so to Day only because they did so yesterday, there is [etc.]. 1800E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. II. 91 Emma, almost indifferent to every thing, followed her mechanically. 1853C. Brontë Villette xxxviii, The place could not be entered. Could it not? a point worth considering; and while revolving it, I mechanically dressed. 1865Dickens Mut. Fr. ii. i, He could do mental arithmetic mechanically.
4. By reference to mechanical causes or principles.
1737Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 88 We ought to explain the Thing mechanically. 1861H. Spencer Educ. (1888) 18 The mechanically-justified wave-line principle.
5. With mechanical tastes or aptitudes.
1726Swift Gulliver i. vi, Having a head mechanically turned,.. I had made for myself a table and chair. 1890Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 201 Any mechanically inclined man can make one in a day.
†6. In a ‘mechanical’ or ungentlemanly manner; meanly. (Cf. mechanical a. 2, mechanic a. 3.) Obs.
1613Chamberlain Let. in Crt. & Times Jas. I (1848) I. 224 But his [Sir T. Bodley's] servants grumble and murmur very much, with whom he hath dealt very mechanically, some of them having served him..above two and twenty years.
7. Comb., as mechanically-minded adj.
1922Guardian 19 May, Any mechanically-minded person can make a simple receiving set for a pound or two. 1937B. H. L. Hart Europe in Arms xvii. 231 Some doubt must remain..as to the ability of horse-minded soldiers to become mechanically minded. 1972G. Durrell Catch me a Colobus ii. 45 Oscar the orang-utan,..the most mechanically-minded of all the apes. |