Ma*chin"er*y (?), n. [From Machine: cf. F. machinerie.] 1. Machines, in
general, or collectively.
2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as, the
machinery of a watch.
3. The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or fictitious
work is carried on and brought to a catastrophe; in an extended sense,
the contrivances by which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious
narrative, in prose or verse, are effected.
The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify
that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in
a poem.
Pope.
4. The means and appliances by which anything is kept in action or a
desired result is obtained; a complex system of parts adapted to a
purpose.
An indispensable part of the machinery of state.
Macaulay.
The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan languages.