machinatio

Forms

māchinātiō f (genitive māchinātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin māchinor (“to contrive”) + -tiō.^[2][3][4] māchinor is from māchina (“machine”), which was borrowed from Ancient Greek μαχανά (mākhanā́), the Doric form of μηχανή (mēkhanḗ).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Cicero,^[5] who writes that some animals have been given machinatio quaedam atque sollertia, a power of contrivance and skill.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It meant the art of making contrivances, then a piece of machinery or a mechanism: Cicero speaks of something moved by a mechanism, such as a sphere, and Caesar uses it of an engine of war.^[2][3] The TLL finds it in Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, Livy and later prose but not in the poets.^[4] The transferred sense, a device or machination, appears in Ulpian, of a scheme to deceive another.^[2]

In Medieval Latin it meant a ruse or fraud, and also a bequest.^[6] English took machination in the late 15th century, from Old French and directly from Latin.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the power of contrivance and of a mechanism.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of an engine of war.^[2][5]
• before 223 AD – Ulpian uses it of a scheme to deceive.^[2][5]
• late 15th century – English borrows it as machination.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The art of making machines or contrivances.^[2][3]
2. A piece of machinery, mechanism, contrivance.^[2][3][1]
3. (military) An engine of war.^[2]
4. A device, artifice; a machination.^[2][1]
5. (Medieval Latin) A ruse, fraud; a bequest.^[6]

Related words

• māchina
• māchinālis
• māchināmen
• māchināmentum
• māchinārius
• māchinātor
• māchinātrix
• māchinātus
• māchinor
• māchinōsus
• English machination

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com