Mechanics

How to spell mechanics

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mechanics

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mechanics mean?

1. nounThe branch of science concerned with the motion of bodies and the forces acting on them.
2. nounThe practical, detailed way in which something operates or is carried out.
3. nounMore than one person whose job is to repair and maintain machinery or vehicles.

Mechanics in a sentence

• The engineering course begins with a term of classical mechanics.

• The manual explains the mechanics of submitting an expense claim.

• Two mechanics worked through the night to fix the fleet of vans.

• Quantum mechanics overturned many assumptions of earlier physics.

• They spent the meeting discussing the mechanics of the merger.

• The garage employs five qualified mechanics.

Where does mechanics come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek mekhanikos, meaning 'relating to machines or devices', which itself was built on mekhane, a word for a contrivance, engine, or clever device. The Greek mekhane also gave us 'machine' and 'mechanism', so all three are close cousins, which explains the shared 'mech' spelling with its hard 'k' sound spelled 'ch'. Latin borrowed the term as mechanicus, and it travelled into English in the sixteenth century, partly through French, first describing the practical art of building and working machines. By the seventeenth century the plural form 'mechanics' had settled into its scientific sense, the branch of study dealing with motion and forces, following the pattern of other learned subjects like physics and mathematics. The 'ch' pronounced as 'k' is the classic spelling trap, a fingerprint of the word's Greek ancestry.

How the word is built

• mechan- (from Greek mekhane: machine, contrivance)
• -ic (relating to)
• -s (plural/study-of suffix)