machinor

Forms

māchinor (present infinitive māchinārī, perfect active māchinātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin māchina (“machine, contrivance”) + -or.^[2][1][3] The OLD and Wiktionary derive māchina from Ancient Greek μαχανά (makhaná, “machine, tool”), the Doric form beside Attic μηχανή (mēkhanḗ);^[2][1][4] Wiktionary calls it a very early borrowing, since the unstressed ⟨a⟩ was reduced to ⟨i⟩.^[1] The TLL compares the Greek verb μηχανάομαι (mēkhanáomai, “to contrive”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it first,^[5] in the Bacchides, where a character says he will devise some machine to get gold from somewhere.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to contrive skilfully, invent, devise: Cicero says it is incredible with what care nature has devised things, speaks of him who devised these things, and says musicians devised two things for pleasure, verse and song.^[6][2] Sallust uses the participle passively of the sound of thunder artificially produced when a statue of Victory placed a crown on a man's head.^[2] More often it is to devise cunningly, to plot: Plautus' māchina, and Sallust's evidence contrived by Publius Autronius.^[2] Stelten gives "contrive, devise, plot, invent" for Church Latin.^[7] The English machinate comes from its participle or from machination.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of devising a trick to get gold.^[2]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of artificial thunder and contrived evidence.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of nature's contrivance.^[6][2]
• c. 1600 – machinate appears in English.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To devise, invent, contrive skilfully, design;^[2][6][1] (perfect participle, passive) artificially produced.^[2][6][1]
2. To devise cunningly, plot, scheme.^[2][6][7][1]

Word family

• māchināmen
• māchināmentum
• māchinātiō
• māchinātor
• māchinātrix

Related words

• māchina
• māchinātus
• māchinō
• English machinate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com