Mechanical

How to spell mechanical

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce mechanical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mechanical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to, operated by, or produced by machines or moving parts.
2. adjectivePerformed automatically and without conscious thought, as if by routine.

Mechanical in a sentence

• The breakdown was caused by a mechanical fault in the engine.

• Her reply was flat and mechanical, as though she had said it a thousand times.

• The factory relies on mechanical systems to package the goods.

• After years on the job, his movements became entirely mechanical.

Where does mechanical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek mekhane, which meant a contrivance, a device, or an ingenious machine, and is the same root that gives us the word 'machine'. The Greeks formed the adjective mekhanikos to describe anything relating to machines or engineering. That word passed into Latin as mechanicus and then into late Middle English during the 1400s, often by way of French, gaining the extra English ending -al along the way. From the start it carried the idea of working by physical means or by a fixed contrivance, and from that grew the figurative sense of an action performed automatically, without conscious thought, like a machine. The 'ch' spelled with a hard /k/ sound is the clearest fingerprint of its Greek ancestry, the same pattern seen in 'mechanism' and 'mechanic'.

How the word is built

• mechan- (from Greek mekhane: machine, device)
• -ic (adjective)
• -al (adjective suffix)