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Technique vs Mechanical - What's the difference?

technique | mechanical |

As a noun technique

is the practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements.

As an adjective mechanical is

characteristic of someone who does manual labour for a living; coarse, vulgar.

technique

English

Noun

  • (uncountable) The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements.
  • * 1924 , HE Wortham, A Musical Odyssey , p. 97:
  • Brahms, after realizing that the technique of the piano was developing along mistaken lines, and his own danger of stereotyping his style, keeps away from it for most of his middle age [...].
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. That’s because the lenses that are excellent at magnifying tiny subjects produce a narrow depth of field. A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that.}}
  • (uncountable) Practical ability in some given field or practice, often as opposed to creativity or imaginative skill.
  • * 2011 , "Bhimsen Joshi", The Economist , 3 Feb 2011:
  • Yet those who packed concert halls to listen to him sing, as Indians did for over six decades, rarely mentioned his technique .
  • (label) a method of achieving something or carrying something out, especially one requiring some skill or knowledge.
  • * 2011 , Paul Lewis & Matthew Taylor, The Guardian , 16 Mar 2011:
  • They said executives were warned about one technique nicknamed "carpet karaoke", which involved bending deportees over in aircraft seats to silence them.

    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