mechanism

noun
/ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/CA/ˈmek.ə.nɪ.zəm/

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *megʰ-der.? Ancient Greek μηχᾰνή (mēkhănḗ)der. New Latin mechanismuslbor. English mechanism Learned borrowing from New Latin mechanismus.

  1. derived from mechanismuslbor
  2. derived from *megʰ-der

Definitions

  1. Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or…

    Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power.

  2. Any combination of cams, gears, links, belts, chains and logical mechanical elements.

    • A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.
  3. A group of entities, such as objects, that interact together.

    • A site that carried [sexually explicit] material, but that gated it off from children through credit cards or other mechanisms to verify the age of the user, would have an acceptable defense under the act.
    • Whatever the mechanism, attempts to starve the beast through revenue shortages somehow seem to make the beast all the more voracious.
  4. + 3 more definitions
    1. A mental, physical, or chemical process.

    2. Any process of, or system designed to manage useful energy conversion.

    3. The theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at mechanism. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01mechanism02links03link04ideas05idea06essence07nature08technology

A definitional loop anchored at mechanism. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at mechanism

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA