Noun

(en noun)

A systematic plan of future action.

* Jonathan Swift

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

* {{quote-magazine, title=Ideas coming down the track, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838

, page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=A “moving platform” scheme

A plot or secret, devious plan.

An orderly combination of related parts.

* John Locke

the appearance and outward scheme of things

* Atterbury

such a scheme of things as shall at once take in time and eternity

* J. Edwards

arguments sufficient to support and demonstrate a whole scheme of moral philosophy

* Macaulay

The Revolution came and changed his whole scheme of life.

A chart or diagram of a system or object.

* South

to draw an exact scheme of Constantinople, or a map of France

(mathematics) A type of topological space.

(UK, chiefly, Scotland) A council housing estate.

* 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 101:

It was all too dear. They all just put their prices up because it was out in the scheme .

(rhetoric) An artful deviation from the ordinary arrangement of words.

(astrology) A representation of the aspects of the celestial bodies for any moment or at a given event.

* Sir Walter Scott

a blue case, from which was drawn a scheme of nativity

Part of a uniform resource identifier indicating the protocol or other purpose, such as http: or news:.

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.}}