machines

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of machine.

   Heavy machines cleared the site in a single afternoon.

   The museum restored several antique printing machines.

   Note

   The ordinary noun plural, and it carries every meaning of machine with it: devices of all kinds, computers, and in older usage motor vehicles and airplanes. In politics it names organized controlling groups, so rival party machines are factions, not equipment. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb, where it follows a singular subject: the shop machines its own parts.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of machine.

   The technician machines every component to precise tolerances.

   This lathe machines aluminum blanks into finished gears.

   Note

   In the workshop this verb usually means cutting metal away along machine-controlled toolpaths, so it nearly always takes an object, namely the part being shaped. A phrase about precision or result often follows: it machines to tight tolerances, or machines a blank into a gear. The broader sense, making something by machinery, survives alongside it but is the less technical of the two.

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