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

(lb) The natural world; consisting of all things unaffected by or predating human technology, production and design. e.g. the ecosystem, the natural environment, virgin ground, unmodified species, laws of nature.

* (1800-1859)

*:Nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

*1891 , (Oscar Wilde), ''(The Decay of Lying)

*:Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects.

The innate characteristics of a thing. What something will tend by its own constitution, to be or do. Distinct from what might be expected or intended.

*1920 , (Herman Cyril McNeile), , Ch.1:

*:Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.

*1869 , , :

*:Mark hardly knew whether to believe this or not. He already began to suspect that Roswell was something of a humbug, and though it was not in his nature to form a causeless dislike, he certainly did not feel disposed to like Roswell.

The summary of everything that has to do with biological, chemical and physical states and events in the physical universe.

*(John Milton) (1608-1674)

*:I oft admire / How Nature , wise and frugal, could commit / Such disproportions.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2012-01, author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31

, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= How to Be Manipulative , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}

Conformity to that which is natural, as distinguished from that which is artificial, or forced, or remote from actual experience.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Kind, sort; character; quality.

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:A dispute of this nature caused mischief.

*

*:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

(lb) Physical constitution or existence; the vital powers; the natural life.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:my days of nature

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:Oppressed nature sleeps.

(lb) Natural affection or reverence.

*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

*:Have we not seen / The murdering son ascend his parent's bed, / Through violated nature force his way?