mechanically, adv.
(mɪˈkænɪkəlɪ)
[f. mechanical a. + -ly2.]
1. By mechanical art, contrivance, or methods; by the use of machinery or instruments.
| 1570 Dee Math. Pref. c ij b, Thus, may you Double your Cube Mechanically. Ibid. c iij, Though it be Naturally done and Mechanically: yet hath it a good Demonstration Mathematicall. 1656 tr. Hobbes' Elem. Philos. (1839) 315 The ancients pronounced it impossible to exhibit in a plane the division of angles,..otherwise than mechanically. 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1749) I. 329 A silly Man carrying two Buckets of Water upon his Shoulders with a round Pole, instead of a flattish one hollowed and mechanically fitted to receive his Shoulders. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxix. 401 To lift her mechanically above her line of flotation. 1893 Atlantic Monthly Feb. 192/2 Large crowds gathered in the mechanically flooded fields. |
2. By mechanical (as opposed to chemical, vital, etc.) agencies or processes; as a mechanical agent; in respect of mechanical properties.
| 1684–5 Boyle Min. Waters 23 Whether any thing..can be..discover'd..by Chymically and Mechanically examining the Mineral Earths [etc.]. 1691 Ray Creation ii. (1704) 415 They suppose even the perfect Animals..to have been formed Mechanically among the rest. 1794 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 186 The calx and magnesia may be chemically combined with the argill, and not merely mechanically mixed as in marls. 1823 J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 25 Being itself insolvable in any known menstruum, and acting mechanically only, it neither destroys nor is destructible. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xxv. 177 The dust and thin smoke mechanically suspended in a London atmosphere. |
3. As by machinery or mechanical action; without spontaneous or conscious exercise of will or thought; automatically.
| 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. 202 If atoms formed the world according to the essential properties of bulk, figure, and motion, they formed it mechanically; and if they formed it mechanically without perception and design, they formed it casually. 1741 tr. D'Argens' Chinese Lett. xiii. 85 With Men who act in a Manner mechanically, who behave so and so to Day only because they did so yesterday, there is [etc.]. 1800 E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. II. 91 Emma, almost indifferent to every thing, followed her mechanically. 1853 C. Brontë Villette xxxviii, The place could not be entered. Could it not? a point worth considering; and while revolving it, I mechanically dressed. 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. ii. i, He could do mental arithmetic mechanically. |
4. By reference to mechanical causes or principles.
| 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 88 We ought to explain the Thing mechanically. 1861 H. Spencer Educ. (1888) 18 The mechanically-justified wave-line principle. |
5. With mechanical tastes or aptitudes.
| 1726 Swift Gulliver i. vi, Having a head mechanically turned,.. I had made for myself a table and chair. 1890 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 201 Any mechanically inclined man can make one in a day. |
† 6. In a ‘mechanical’ or ungentlemanly manner; meanly. (Cf. mechanical a. 2, mechanic a. 3.) Obs.
| 1613 Chamberlain Let. in Crt. & Times Jas. I (1848) I. 224 But his [Sir T. Bodley's] servants grumble and murmur very much, with whom he hath dealt very mechanically, some of them having served him..above two and twenty years. |
7. Comb., as mechanically-minded adj.
| 1922 Guardian 19 May, Any mechanically-minded person can make a simple receiving set for a pound or two. 1937 B. H. L. Hart Europe in Arms xvii. 231 Some doubt must remain..as to the ability of horse-minded soldiers to become mechanically minded. 1972 G. Durrell Catch me a Colobus ii. 45 Oscar the orang-utan,..the most mechanically-minded of all the apes. |