Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Machinery
1.
Machines, in general, or collectively.
2.
The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument;
as, the
. machinery
of a watch3.
The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or fictitious work is carried on and brought to a catastrophe; in an extended sense, the contrivances by which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious narrative, in prose or verse, are effected.
The
machinery
, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem. Pope.
4.
The means and appliances by which anything is kept in action or a desired result is obtained; a complex system of parts adapted to a purpose.
An indispensable part of the
machinery
of state. Macaulay.
The delicate inflexional
machinery
of the Aryan languages. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).
Webster 1828 Edition
Machinery
MACHINERY
,Noun.
1.
Machines in general. The machinery of a cotton-mill is often moved by a single wheel.2.
In epic and dramatic poetry, superhuman beings introduced by the poet to solve difficulty, or perform some exploit which exceeds human power; or the word may signify the agency of such beings, as supposed deities, angels, demons and the like. Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Incidit.
A deity is not to be introduced,unless a difficulty occurs that requires the intervention of a god.
The machinery of Milton's Paradise Lost, consists of numerous superhuman personages. Pope's Rape of the Lock is rendered very interesting by the machinery of sylphs.