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Infernal machine   /ɪnfˈərnəl məʃˈin/   Listen
noun
Machine  n.  
1.
In general, any combination of bodies so connected that their relative motions are constrained, and by means of which force and motion may be transmitted and modified, as a screw and its nut, or a lever arranged to turn about a fulcrum or a pulley about its pivot, etc.; especially, a construction, more or less complex, consisting of a combination of moving parts, or simple mechanical elements, as wheels, levers, cams, etc., with their supports and connecting framework, calculated to constitute a prime mover, or to receive force and motion from a prime mover or from another machine, and transmit, modify, and apply them to the production of some desired mechanical effect or work, as weaving by a loom, or the excitation of electricity by an electrical machine. Note: The term machine is most commonly applied to such pieces of mechanism as are used in the industrial arts, for mechanically shaping, dressing, and combining materials for various purposes, as in the manufacture of cloth, etc. Where the effect is chemical, or other than mechanical, the contrivance is usually denominated an apparatus or device, not a machine; as, a bleaching apparatus. Many large, powerful, or specially important pieces of mechanism are called engines; as, a steam engine, fire engine, graduating engine, etc. Although there is no well-settled distinction between the terms engine and machine among practical men, there is a tendency to restrict the application of the former to contrivances in which the operating part is not distinct from the motor.
2.
Any mechanical contrivance, as the wooden horse with which the Greeks entered Troy; a coach; a bicycle.
3.
A person who acts mechanically or at the will of another.
4.
A combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use; as, the social machine. "The whole machine of government ought not to bear upon the people with a weight so heavy and oppressive."
5.
A political organization arranged and controlled by one or more leaders for selfish, private or partisan ends; the Tammany machine. (Political Cant)
6.
Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.
Elementary machine, a name sometimes given to one of the simple mechanical powers. See under Mechanical.
Infernal machine. See under Infernal.
Machine gun.See under Gun.
Machine screw, a screw or bolt adapted for screwing into metal, in distinction from one which is designed especially to be screwed into wood.
Machine shop, a workshop where machines are made, or where metal is shaped by cutting, filing, turning, etc.
Machine tool, a machine for cutting or shaping wood, metal, etc., by means of a tool; especially, a machine, as a lathe, planer, drilling machine, etc., designed for a more or less general use in a machine shop, in distinction from a machine for producing a special article as in manufacturing.
Machine twist, silken thread especially adapted for use in a sewing machine.
Machine work, work done by a machine, in contradistinction to that done by hand labor.


adjective
Infernal  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to or suitable for the lower regions, inhabited, according to the ancients, by the dead; pertaining to Pluto's realm of the dead, the Tartarus of the ancients. "The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy."
2.
Of or pertaining to, resembling, or inhabiting, hell; suitable for hell, or to the character of the inhabitants of hell; hellish; diabolical; as, infernal spirits, or conduct. "The instruments or abettors in such infernal dealings."
Infernal machine, a machine or apparatus maliciously designed to explode, and destroy life or property.
Infernal stone (lapis infernalis), lunar caustic; formerly so called. The name was also applied to caustic potash.
Synonyms: Tartarean; Stygian; hellish; devilish; diabolical; satanic; fiendish; malicious.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Infernal machine" Quotes from Famous Books



... would fly open, partitions fall down, and all those privacies meet and answer in one terrible outcry. He put up a hand to thrust it away—this awful gift of power. He would have none of it; he was unfit. "Oh, my God!"—it was he, not Casey, who held the real infernal machine. It was here, not in the Berenice, that the levin must fall; and he, John Gilbart, held it in his fingers. "Oh, my God, I am unfit—thrust not ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... box," commanded a lieutenant. "We caught this man, Sir," said the lieutenant, addressing the colonel, "hanging around the officers' mess hall with a box. We thought it contained an infernal machine, and that he might be a German spy. We brought him here to talk to him, and then we discovered the snake crawling ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... anchored in the north channel of Orleans, and on the twenty-first of June the masts of three of them could plainly be seen. One of the fireships was consumed in a vain attempt to burn them, and several firerafts and a sort of infernal machine were tried with no better success; the unwelcome ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... neutralize for some little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing. Nor was the pirate unarmed—a vicious flare of incandescence leaped from his Lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, crackling pyrotechnics against the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. But Costigan's infernal machine did not rely only upon vibratory destruction. At almost the first flash of the pirate's weapon the officer touched a trigger; there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space; and the pirate's ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... portmanteau specially designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal machine, and have to telegraph to their Government ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... to him. On being once more tortured, he only confirmed this confession. Carli was again summoned, and set upon the 'she-goat,' with heavy weights attached to his feet. The poor wretch sat for two hours on this infernal machine, the sharp edges and spikes of which were so contrived as to press slowly and deeply upon the tenderest portions of his body.[192] But he endured this agony without uttering a word, until the judges perceived that he was at the point of death. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... at the infernal machine behind her—a machine that should have been buried ten fathoms deep in the sea. Nevertheless, it had for her a strange fascination, and she longed to quench her thirst ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola


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