machinery

machinery
    n 1: machines or machine systems collectively
    2: a system of means and activities whereby a social institution
       functions; "the complex machinery of negotiation"; "the
       machinery of command labored and brought forth an order"
    

Machinery \Ma*chin"er*y\ (m[.a]*sh[=e]n"[~e]r*[y^]), n. [From
   {Machine}: cf. F. machinerie.]
   1. Machines, in general, or collectively.
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   2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as,
      the machinery of a watch.
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   3. 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.
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            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.
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   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.
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            An indispensable part of the machinery of state.
                                                  --Macaulay.
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            The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan
            languages.                            --I. Taylor
                                                  (The
                                                  Alphabet).
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213 Moby Thesaurus words for "machinery":
      accouterments, action, adding machine, addressing machine, agency,
      agent, all-crop harvester, apparatus, appliance, appliances,
      appointments, appurtenances, armament, automobile, backhoe, baler,
      bean harvester, beet harvester, binder, breaker, bulldozer,
      calfdozer, carryall, cast plow, channel, clockworks, combine,
      compressor, contraption, contrivance, convenience, conveniences,
      cotton picker, crab, crane, crimping machine, cultivator,
      cutting machine, cutting press, derrick, device, dishwasher, disk,
      disk harrow, disk plow, drag, dredge, dredger, dredging machine,
      drill, drill plow, drive, drive train, drop hammer, duffel,
      dumping machine, edger, elevator dredge, engine, enginery,
      equipage, equipment, expedient, facilities, facility, fittings,
      fixture, fixtures, folding machine, four-bottom plow, furnishings,
      furniture, gadget, gang plow, gear, gin, going between, grader,
      grain harvester, grub hook, habiliments, harrow, harvester,
      haymaker, header, hoe drill, hoist, hydraulic press, impedimenta,
      implement, innards, installations, instrument, instrumentality,
      intermediation, kit, lawn mower, lister, lister cultivator,
      machine, machine drill, mailing machine, materiel, means,
      mechanical aid, mechanical device, mechanism, mediation, medium,
      middlebreaker, moldboard plow, motion, motive power, motor,
      motorcycle, movement, movements, mower, munition, munitions, navvy,
      organ, outfit, packager, paraphernalia, peg-tooth harrow,
      pile driver, planing machine, plant, planter, plow, plow drill,
      plumbing, power mower, power plant, power shovel, power source,
      power train, prairie breaker, press, press drill, printing machine,
      pulp machine, punching machine, pusher, rake, recourse, resort,
      rig, rigging, roller, rose engine, rotary plow, ruling machine,
      saw machine, scooter, scraper, screwing machine, seed plow, seeder,
      service, servomechanism, sewer, sewing machine, shovel plow,
      snap machine, snow-thrower, snowblower, snowplow, solar machine,
      sprayer, spring-tooth harrow, stag gang, steam hammer,
      steam shovel, steamroller, stock-in-trade, subsoil plow,
      sulky lister, sulky plow, swather, swivel plow, tackle, tackling,
      tedder, things, thrasher, three-bottom plow, thresher,
      threshing machine, tool, tractor, trench plow, triphammer,
      turnplow, two-bottom plow, typewriter, typing machine, utensil,
      utensils, utility, vehicle, vineyard plow, walking plow,
      washing machine, watchworks, water wheel, wheels,
      wheels within wheels, windlass, windrower, workings, works