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.}}

Noun

(en noun)

Something invented.

* 1944 November 28, Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:

Warren Sheffield is telephoning Rose long distance at half past six. Personally, I wouldn't marry a man who proposed to me over an invention .

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-10-05, volume=409, issue=8856, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The widening gyre , passage=British inventions have done more to influence the shape of the modern world than those of any other country. Many—football, the steam engine and Worcestershire sauce, to take a random selection—have spread pleasure, goodwill and prosperity. Others—the Maxim gun, the Shrapnel shell and jellied eels—have not.}}

The act of inventing.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=Digging deeper, the invention of eyeglasses is an elaboration of the more fundamental development of optics technology. The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,

The capacity to invent.

(music) A small, self-contained composition, particularly those in J.S. Bach’s Two-'' and ''Three-part Inventions .

* 1880 , (George Grove) (editor and entry author), , page 15, Invention:

INVENTION .?A term used by J. S. Bach, and probably by him only, for small pianoforte pieces?—?15 in 2 parts and 15 in 3 parts?—?each developing a single idea, and in some measure answering to the Impromptu of a later day.

(label) The act of discovering or finding; the act of finding out; discovery.