Mechanic

How to spell mechanic

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mechanic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mechanic mean?

1. nounA skilled worker who repairs and maintains machinery, especially vehicle engines.

Mechanic in a sentence

• The mechanic replaced the worn brake pads on my car.

• She trained as a mechanic before opening her own garage.

Where does mechanic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek mekhane, which meant a machine, a device, or a clever contrivance, and from which we also get 'machine' itself. The Greeks built the adjective mekhanikos, meaning 'relating to machines' or 'inventive', from that root. Latin borrowed it as mechanicus, and the word travelled into English through Old French during the 1300s and 1400s, at first as an adjective describing manual or machine work and later as a noun for a skilled tradesperson. An older shade of meaning carried a hint of 'menial' or 'common labour', since handling machinery was once seen as humble work. The 'ch' is pronounced like a hard 'k' precisely because of that Greek origin, and remembering the Greek root helps explain why the spelling keeps the 'ch' rather than a plain 'k'.

How the word is built

• mechan- (from Greek mekhane: machine, device, contrivance)
• -ic (noun/adjective suffix)