Machining

How to spell machining

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce machining

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does machining mean?

1. nounThe process of shaping or finishing a workpiece by cutting away material with powered tools such as lathes, mills, or drills.
2. verbShaping or finishing a material by cutting it with machine tools (present participle of 'to machine').

Machining in a sentence

• noun

  Precision machining of the engine block required several specialist tools.

• verb

  The technician is machining the bracket to the exact dimensions on the drawing.

• noun

  The workshop charges by the hour for machining on its computer-controlled lathes.

• verb

  They spent the afternoon machining a replacement shaft from solid steel.

Where does machining come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word grows out of 'machine', which English borrowed from French in the 1500s; the French word came from Latin machina, a 'contrivance' or 'engine', and that in turn was taken from the Greek mekhane, meaning a 'device' or 'means', related to mekhos, 'a means or expedient'. For centuries 'machine' described any ingenious mechanical contrivance, and only with the rise of factory engineering did 'to machine' come to mean shaping metal or other material with powered cutting tools. The form 'machining' adds the ordinary English -ing ending used for both the present participle and the action noun. A spelling point worth noting is that the final silent 'e' of 'machine' is dropped before -ing, and the soft 'sh' sound is carried by a single 'ch', not by 'sh', which is exactly where the eye can be misled.

How the word is built

• machine (from Latin/Greek for a contrivance or device)
• -ing (verbal noun / present participle suffix)