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Automatic vs Mechanical - What's the difference?

automatic | mechanical |

As adjectives the difference between automatic and mechanical

is that automatic is capable of operating without external control or intervention while mechanical is characteristic of someone who does manual labour for a living; coarse, vulgar.

As a noun automatic

is a car with automatic transmission.

automatic

English

Alternative forms

* automatick

Adjective

(-)
  • Capable of operating without external control or intervention.
  • The automatic clothes washer was a great labor-saving device
  • Done out of habit or without conscious thought.
  • The reaction was automatic : flight!
  • (of a firearm such as a machine gun) Firing continuously as long as the trigger is pressed until ammunition is exhausted.
  • (computing, of a local variable) Automatically added to and removed from the stack during the course of function calls.
  • (maths, of a group) Having one or more finite-state automata
  • Synonyms

    * (without conscious thought) perfunctory, thoughtless, instinctive

    Antonyms

    * (capable of operating without external control) manual * (without conscious thought) voluntary

    Derived terms

    * automatically * automaticity * automatic transmission * automatical

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A car with automatic transmission.
  • I never learned to drive a stick. I can only drive an automatic .
  • A semi-automatic firearm.
  • Antonyms

    * (car with automatic transmission) stick, stickshift; manual transmission; standard transmission

    mechanical

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Characteristic of someone who does manual labour for a living; coarse, vulgar.
  • *, I.43:
  • all manner of silks were already become so vile and abject, that was any man seene to weare them, he was presently judged to be some countrie fellow, or mechanicall man.
  • Related to mechanics (the branch of physics that deals with forces acting on mass).
  • Related to mechanics (the design and construction of machines).
  • Done by machine.
  • Using mechanics (the design and construction of machines): being a machine.
  • As if performed by a machine: lifeless or mindless.
  • (of a person) Acting as if one were a machine: lifeless or mindless.
  • *, chapter=15
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.}}
  • (informal) Handy with machines.
  • Derived terms

    * electromechanical * mechanical erasure * mechanicality * mechanically * mechanicalness * mechanical pencil * postmechanical * premechanical