Noun

(en-noun)

The body of all written works.

The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group or culture.

All the papers, treatises etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.

*

The obvious question to ask at this point is: ‘Why posit the existence of a set of Thematic Relations (THEME, AGENT, INSTRUMENT, etc.) distinct from constituent structure relations?? The answer given in the relevant literature is that a variety of linguistic phenomena can be accounted for in a more principled way in terms of Thematic Functions than in terms of constituent structure relations.

Written fiction of a high standard.

However, even “literary” science fiction rarely qualifies as literature , because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories. —Adam Cadre, 2008

Noun

(en noun)

A device that directs and controls energy, often in the form of movement or electricity, to produce a certain effect.

* {{quote-magazine, title=A better waterworks, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838

, page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine . Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.}}

(archaic) A vehicle operated mechanically; an automobile.

(telephony, abbreviation) An answering machine or, by extension, voice mail.

(computing) A computer.

(figuratively) A person or organisation that seemingly acts like a machine, being particularly efficient, single-minded, or unemotional.

Especially, the group that controls a political or similar organization; a combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use.

* Landor

The whole machine of government ought not to bear upon the people with a weight so heavy and oppressive.

Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.

(Addison)

(euphemistic, obsolete) Penis.

{{quote-Fanny Hill, part=3 , He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one of the pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable elevation, and another under my head, in ease of it; then spreading my thighs, and placing himself standing between them, made them rest upon his hips; applying then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he sought entrance.}}