mechanical
Noun pluralmechanicals
Pluralmechanicals
- 1Operating as a machine, made of moving parts that work together to perform a task.
A mechanical watch keeps time using a wound spring rather than electronics.
The factory still runs several mechanical looms built over a century ago.
Oppositeelectronic
- 2Relating to the design and construction of machines.
The company hired a firm to handle the mechanical systems of the new building.
He earned a degree in mechanical engineering.
- 3Relating to the branch of physics concerned with forces acting on matter and their effects on motion.
The engineer calculated the mechanical stresses on the beam.
Mechanical energy is the sum of an object's kinetic and potential energy.
- 4Carried out by a machine rather than by hand.
The vineyard switched to mechanical picking to cut labor costs.
Mechanical ventilation pushes fresh air through the entire mine.
Similarautomated, mechanized, automatic
Oppositemanual
- 5Performed automatically and without thought or feeling, as if by a machine.
The cashier's mechanical smile never reached her eyes.
After weeks of rehearsal, the dance had become mechanical and joyless.
Similarautomatic, perfunctory, robotic, routine, unthinking
Oppositespontaneous, heartfelt, genuine
- 6Behaving in a lifeless, mindless way, as though one were a machine.
Years on the assembly line had left him mechanical and detached.
The soldiers marched in mechanical silence, their faces blank.
Similarrobotic, lifeless, wooden, mindless
Note
Where the machine-like sense judges an act, such as a reply or a smile, this one judges the person: the pianist is too mechanical. It often comes with manner. In W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918), a priest chafing at his collar works "in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker." The fault it names is going through the motions, not failing at them.
- 7Skilled at working with or repairing machines.
He's the most mechanical person in the family, always tinkering with cars.
She proved surprisingly mechanical, rebuilding the carburetor in an afternoon.
Similarhandy
- 8An engineer who specializes in the design and construction of machinery.
The plant employs three mechanicals to maintain the turbines.
Ask a mechanical to review the gearbox specifications.
Similarengineer
Note
Engineers' own shorthand: drop the second word and add a plural. The Michigan Alumnus of 1910 reports "the civils, mechanicals and electricals" changing their relative positions. It names people by discipline and sits naturally beside those sibling terms. Outside engineering circles it can be misread as a machine or as the old word for a laborer, so a general audience is better served by mechanical engineer.
- 9A robot or artificial creature, especially one appearing in science fiction.
The crew's mechanical malfunctioned just as the airlock opened.
Rebel mechanicals rose against their human creators in the final chapter.
Similarrobot, android, automaton, droid
Note
Science fiction's countable word for a made being, usually heard in the plural: mechanicals arise, are programmed, interact with humans. In Gregory Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity (2013) they form whole civilizations. In Cindy Spencer Pape's Moonlight & Mechanicals (2012) the question is whether a figure is "a mechanical, or a man in a clockwork suit." Unlike the archaic labor-saving machine, it implies something that acts on its own.
- 10A failure of equipment, especially a bicycle, occurring during a race or ride.
The favorite lost the stage after a mechanical on the final climb.
Two riders abandoned the race following mechanicals in the feed zone.
Similarbreakdown, malfunction, failure
Note
Cyclists' word for a breakdown, from a broken chain to a failed derailleur. Riders suffer mechanicals, and support crews stand by for major mechanicals. Plans come hedged with "barring mechanicals," the title of Andy Allsopp's 2010 account of riding London to Edinburgh and back. Clive Forth's mountain-bike guide adds the joking companion bio-mechanicals for injuries. The term covers the bike, not the rider.
- 11A hand-assembled layout of artwork and text prepared camera-ready for photographic reproduction.
Before digital tools, an artist pasted every element onto the mechanical by hand.
The agency archived old mechanicals from past advertising campaigns.
Similarpaste-up
Note
A term from the paste-up era of advertising production. Copy, display type and pictures were positioned by hand on the board, ready for the camera. Elements go "on the mechanical," and the word pairs with layout: the rough layout is the plan, and the mechanical carries it out exactly. Jerry Demoney and Susan E. Meyer's Pasteups & Mechanicals (1982) shows how closely the words traveled together.
- 12An organ stop controlled by hand or foot during performance, rather than set up beforehand.
He engaged a mechanical mid-phrase to brighten the final chord.
The instrument's mechanicals let the player change registration on the fly.
Note
An organists' term, nearly always plural, for the playing aids at the console. The New Music Review of 1911 divides them into hand mechanicals and foot mechanicals, alongside debates over the crescendo pedal. Keep them distinct from the tonal side. In The American Organist of 1961, the mechanicals need repair, while the voicing and tonal resources are a separate matter.
- 13A manual laborer or workman, especially of the humble, unrefined sort like Shakespeare's rude mechanicals.
The mechanicals gathered in the woods to rehearse their amateur drama.
He was a humble mechanical, more at ease with a hammer than a quill.
Similarlaborer, workman, artisan, tradesman
Note
The phrase behind this noun is Shakespeare's "rude mechanicals," the tradesmen of A Midsummer Night's Dream who stage a clumsy play within the comedy. Later writers borrow the phrase knowingly. A. J. Smithers titled his 1989 account of tanks in the Second World War Rude Mechanicals, and Ronda Arab's Manly Mechanicals (2011) studies such artisans on the early modern stage. The older snobbery belongs to the "coarse" adjective.
- 14A machine built to perform work formerly done by animals or human hands.
The estate's new mechanical threshed grain that once took a dozen laborers.
Above all things, I liked to hear about horseless carriages and self-powered mechanicals, but I'd settle for ghosts at a pinch.
2014, Delia Sherman, Young Woman in a Garden: StoriesNote
A word for the machine that took over the horse's or the laborer's job, and it now lives mostly in fiction that looks back on that change. Margaret McGaffey Fisk's Safe Haven: The Steamship Chronicles (2015) has blacksmiths putting out steam-driven mechanicals, and Delia Sherman sets self-powered mechanicals beside horseless carriages. Outside such settings it sounds deliberately old-fashioned. For a humanlike machine, writers turn instead to the robot sense.
- 15Typical of a manual laborer; coarse, low, or vulgar in manner.
She found his mechanical habits unbecoming of polite company.
Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, Is in base durance and contagious prison, Haled thither by most mechanical and dirty hand.
c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth,. Epilogue.”Note
A word of social contempt rather than of skill. In William Shakespeare's The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, a "most mechanical and dirty hand" is a low hand. In John Florio's Montaigne of 1603, a "mechanicall man" stands beside a "countrie fellow" as someone no gentleman wants to be mistaken for. Modern readers will likely hear the machine-like sense instead, so plain coarse or vulgar serves better today.
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Origin
From Middle English mechanical (also mechanicalle, mechanycalle), equivalent to mechanic + -al.