Editing Machine (section)

==Etymology==
The English word ''machine'' comes through [[Middle French]] from [[Latin]] {{lang|la|machina}},<ref name=AHD>''The American Heritage Dictionary'', Second College Edition. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1985.</ref> which in turn derives from the [[ancient Greek|Greek]] ([[Doric Greek|Doric]] {{lang|grc|μαχανά }} {{transliteration|grc|makhana}}, [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] {{lang|grc|μηχανή }} {{transliteration|grc|mekhane}} 'contrivance, machine, engine',<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dmhxanh%2F "μηχανή"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629140054/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=mhxanh%2F |date=2011-06-29 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus project</ref> a derivation from {{lang|grc|μῆχος }} {{transliteration|grc|mekhos}} 'means, expedient, remedy'<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dmh%3Dxos "μῆχος"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629140106/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=mh=xos |date=2011-06-29 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus project</ref>).<ref>Oxford Dictionaries, [https://web.archive.org/web/20180426213204/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/machine machine]</ref> The word ''mechanical'' (Greek: {{lang|grc|μηχανικός}}) comes from the same Greek roots. A wider meaning of 'fabric, structure' is found in classical Latin, but not in Greek usage. This meaning is found in late medieval French, and is adopted from the French into English in the mid-16th century.

In the 17th century, the word machine could also mean a scheme or plot, a meaning now expressed by the derived [[:wikt:machination|machination]]. The modern meaning develops out of specialized application of the term to [[stagecraft|stage engines]] used in [[Elizabethan theater|theater]] and to military [[siege engine]]s, both in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The [[OED]] traces the formal, modern meaning to [[John Harris (writer)|John Harris]]' ''[[Lexicon Technicum]]'' (1704), which has:

:''Machine, or Engine, in Mechanicks, is whatsoever hath Force sufficient either to raise or stop the Motion of a Body. Simple Machines are commonly reckoned to be Six in Number, viz. the Ballance, Leaver, Pulley, Wheel, Wedge, and Screw. Compound Machines, or Engines, are innumerable.''
The word ''[[:wikt:engine|engine]]'' used as a (near-) synonym both by Harris and in later language derives ultimately (via [[Old French]]) from Latin {{lang|la|ingenium}} 'ingenuity, an invention'.