Machine - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system

Machine (mechanical)

The mechanical properties of a machine manage power to achieve desired forces and movement. Modern machines often include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, and are called mechanical systems....

, a computing system

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

, an electronic system

Electronic System

Electronic System is a Belgian synthesizer group .Disco Machine is an album of seven original compositions from Dan Lacksman, who’s better known as being part of the group, TELEX. This material was first recorded in 1977.- External links :*...

, and a molecular machine

Molecular machine

A molecular machine, or nanomachine, is any discrete number of molecular components that produce quasi-mechanical movements in response to specific stimuli . The expression is often more generally applied to molecules that simply mimic functions that occur at the macroscopic level...

. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work. A simple machine

Simple machine

A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage to multiply force. A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force...

is a device that transforms the direction or magnitude of a force

Force

In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...

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The word "machine" is derived from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

word machina, which in turn derives from the Doric Greek

Doric Greek

Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

μαχανά (machana), Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...

μηχανή (mechane) "contrivance, machine, engine" and that from μῆχος (mechos), "means, expedient, remedy".

The meaning of machine is traced by the Oxford English Dictionary to an independently functioning structure and by Merriam-Webster Dictionary to something that has been constructed.