1545 in J. Schäfer Early Mod. Eng. Lexicogr. (1989) II. (at cited word) The hole machyne of this world is divided in .2. parte. That is to saye, in the celestiall and into the elementall regions.

1545 in J. Schäfer Early Mod. Eng. Lexicogr. (1989) II. (at cited word) Machine, hath many significacions, but here it is taken for the worke of the hole worlde.

c1550 Complaynt Scotl. (1979) 2 The maist illustir potent prince of the maist fertil & pacebil realme, vndir the machine of the supreme olimp.

1599 A. Hume Hymnes sig. B4 Be his wisedome,..sa wondrouslie of nocht, This machin round, this vniuers, this vther warld he wrocht.

1673 H. Hickman Hist. Quinq-articularis 518 They that asserted Universal redemption by the death of Christ destroyed the whole Machine of the Calvinian predestination.

1682 N. O. tr. N. Boileau-Despréaux Lutrin i. 239 Behind this Machine [sc. a pulpit], cover'd as with a skreen, The Sneaking Chanter scarce could then be seen.

1753 J. Hanway Hist. Acct. Brit. Trade Caspian Sea II. iii. 13 Her imperial majesty is drawn..in a large machine, which contains her bed, a table, and other conveniences...This machine is set on a sledge, and drawn by 24 post horses.

1791 C. Smith Celestina I. 129 Her new laylock bonnet..for the safety of which she was so solicitous that she would have taken the great machine in which it was contained into the coach, had it not been opposed by the coachman.

a1806 J. Barry in R. N. Wornum Lect. on Painting (1848) 196 Had the whole of this great machine of the Fontana di Trevi been committed to any one of those sculptors.

1829 R. Hall Wks. (1832) VI. 457 The mind casts its eye over the whole machine of society.

1878 R. Browning La Saisiaz 279 To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine.

1595–6 Queen Elizabeth I Let. to James VI (Camden Soc.) 113 In wordz..of such waight, as, in honest dimars, hit may mar the façon of diuelische machines, and crase the hartz of treason-mynding men.

1601 S. Daniel Ciuill Warres (rev. ed.) vi. viii. f. 84, in Wks. As vsually it fares with those that plot These machines of Ambition, and high pride.

1707 G. Farquhar Beaux Stratagem v. 65 Now unless Aimwell has made good use of his time, all our fair Machine goes souse into the Sea like the Edistone.

1609 B. Jonson Masque of Queenes sig. D3^v She, after the Musique had done, which wayted on the turning of the Machine, cal'd from thence, to Vertue.

1658 Hist. Q. Christina 225 This play succeeded very well, especially for the admirable beauty and finenesse of the machins.

1681 C. Cotton Wonders of Peake (1699) 9 Like a Machine which, when some god appears, We see descend upon our Theaters.

1720 Hist. Life & Adventures D. Campbell viii. 251 She..descended into that Room full of Company as a Miracle appearing in a Machine from above.

1741 W. Oldys et al. Betterton's Hist. Eng. Stage i. 9 Adorned..with all the Machines and Decorations, the Skill of those Times could afford.

a1845 T. Hood Vauxhall in Compl. Wks. (1884) X. App. 564 Time's ripe for the Ballet, Like bees they all rally Before the machine!

1873 R. Browning Red Cotton Night-cap Country ii. 124 Forth steps the needy tailor on the stage, Deity-like from dusk machine of fog.

1951 W. H. Auden Nones (1952) 29 A rather scruffy-looking god Descends in a machine.

1674 T. Rymer in tr. R. Rapin Refl. Aristotle's Treat. Poesie Pref. sig. a2 Since in the principal actions all is carried on by Machine; how can these examples be propos'd for great persons to imitate?

1692 J. Dryden All for Love (new ed.) Pref. sig. b^v The greatest errour in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia... Yet the force of the first Machine still remain'd.

1705 J. Addison Remarks Italy 425 The Apparition of Venus comes in very properly..for without such a Machine..I can't see how the Heroe could..leave Neoptolemus triumphant.

1713 D. Bartlett in Guardian 10 Aug. 2/2 I come now to treat of the Machines, a Sort of Beings that have the Outside or Appearance of Men, without being really such.

1756 J. Warton Ess. on Pope I. iv. 222 These machines are vastly superior to the allegorical personages of Boileau and Garth.

1765 H. Walpole Castle of Otranto (ed. 2) Pref. The actions, sentiments, conversations, of the heroes and heroines of ancient days were as unnatural as the machines employed to put them in motion.

1781 T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry III. xxiii. 83 It has nothing, except the machine of the chime, in common with Fabyll's Ghoste.

1897 W. P. Ker Epic & Romance 36 The episodes of Circe, of the Sirens, and of Polyphemus, are machines.

1637 T. Heywood True Descr. Royall Ship 27 Shee [sc. Pallas] hath (no doubt) raptured our Undertaker This Machine to devise first, and then make her.

1702 S. Parker tr. Cicero Five Bks. De Finibus v. 320 In vain upon the Canvas plays A wanton Gale. The Machin stays Becalm'd with Harmony.

1717 W. Sutherland (title) Britain's glory: or, ship-building unvail'd. Being a general director, for building and compleating the said machines.

1782 J. H. St. J. de Crèvecoeur Lett. from Amer. Farmer ix. 220 [Slaves] carried in a strange machine over an ever agitated element, which they had never seen before.

1807 R. Southey Lett. from Eng. II. 155 We..embarked upon the canal in a stage boat bound for Chester... The shape of the machine resembles the common representations of Noah's ark.

1985 Sydney Morning Herald 27 July 67/6 He..had no second thoughts about helping to sail it—and it is a flighty, high-performance machine—in the Round Britain race.

1687 A. Lovell tr. J. de Thévenot Trav. into Levant iii. 54 They make use of an Engine which they call Palanquin... This Machine hangs by a long Pole [etc.].

1704 J. Swift Disc. Mech. Operat. Spirit i, in Tale of Tub 286 Tho' there is not any other Nation in the World, so plentifully provided with Carriages for that Journey..yet there are abundance of us, who will not be satisfied with any other Machine, besides this of Mahomet [sc. an ass].

1709 London Gaz. No. 4545/1 His Serenity, accompanied by..the Boy who drew the Balls for the Election [of Doge] sitting in the same Machine, was carried out of the Church.

1759 J. Newton Diary 21 Mar. in Deserted Village (1992) 17 Went to London in the Oxford Machine.

1759 J. Newton Diary 22 Mar. in Deserted Village (1992) 17 Return'd to Newnham in the Machine.

1759 A. Smith Theory Moral Sentiments iv. §i. 342 The poor man's son..sees his superiors carried about in machines.

1769 Defoe's Tour Great Brit. (ed. 7) III. 106 A Machine going out to, and coming in from, London three Times a Week in the Summer.

1772 E. Burke Corr. (1844) I. 372 Your very kind letter of the 15^th,..I received by the machine.

1791 A. Grant Let. 4 June in Lett. from Mountains (1806) I. 233 I came in a little open machine we keep for these journies.

1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1769 I. 324 A new-invented machine which went without horses.

1815 De Baader Specif. Patent 3959 7 Those complicated unwieldy and dangerous machines called locomotive engines or steam horses.

1822 Acc. Establ. Gen. P.-O. 8 in Parl. Papers XVIII. 175 To loss by death of two horses before the machine commenced running.

1832 Mass. Stat. c. 75 §4 Every cart, wagon, or other machine, drawn by two or four oxen.

1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 485 Such locomotive machines, impelled by steam power, as have been contrived for use upon common roads.

1847 F. S. Edwards Campaign in New Mexico 158 We had brought several of the great traders' wagons down with us; and these immense machines, with their long ten-mule teams, proved a source of wonder and amusement to the teamsters.

1893 H. Joyce Hist. Post Office xii. 215 In that year [sc. 1784], and for some little time afterwards, coaches which carried the mails were called diligences or machines, and the coachmen were called machine-drivers.

1894 W. Black Highland Cousins I. 37 I would bring a machine and drive you up to the Drill-Hall.

1900 J. Conrad Lord Jim v. 48 The little machine shook and rocked tumultuously... The driver lashed; the pony..darted off at a gallop.

1911 G.N.S.R. Tourist Guide 305 Close and Open Machines suitable for Marriage and Picnic sent anywhere with good horses and careful drivers.

1986 P. O'Brian Reverse of Medal (1987) viii. 218 The chaise lost not a moment:..the elegant black and yellow machine ran steadily north..never lacking for horses at any stage on the road.

1763 Ipswich Jrnl. 21 May 3/2 At Aldeburgh in Suffolk..for the Conveniency of those who choose Bathing in the real Ocean, there is a curious Machine, that, by the Assistance of a Single Person, may be run into the Sea to any Depth proper for Bathing.

1788 E. Sheridan Let. in Betsy Sheridan's Jrnl. (1986) iv. 114 I went down to the bathing House where I found a great Number of Ladies and Gentlemen waiting to take their turn in the Machines.

1825 E. Weeton Jrnl. 14 June (1969) II. 384 Southport..is sadly exposing..and the modest complain much, gentlemen's and ladies' machines standing promiscuously in the water!

1859 All Year Round 3 Sept. 446 I got into the wrong machine [sc. a bathing-machine] first.

1870 G. Meredith Lett. (1970) I. 426 We have a flat sandy shore, and you see half a dozen fat men at a time scampering out of the machines.

1818 W. Sewall Diary 19 June (1930) 53/2 I went to the circus and rode on the velocipede, which is a new machine.]

1823 J. Badcock Domest. Amusem. 209 He never proceeded with his machine at a greater rate than five miles an hour, and yet named it Velocipede.

1871 Porcupine 29 July 276/1 Tantalising the tollbar keepers on a ‘machine’.

1883 H. Sturmey Tricyclists' Indispensable Ann. (ed. 3) 126 A glance at the tricycle trade..with full description of upwards of 250 machines.

1899 Northern Times (Golspie, Sutherland) 22 June 1/1 (advt.) Splendid cycles... Boys' machines at £5 10s.

1907 Motor Cycle 1 May 358/1 Cash prizes will be awarded to the drivers of machines taking part in the..Tourist Trophy Race.

1954 Highway Code 32 To motor cyclists and riders of motor-assisted pedal cycles..you must not carry more than one passenger on a two-wheeled machine.

1972 Daily Tel. 5 Aug. 9/3 For us, it was back to our bicycles. We stacked our machines in the back of the car and set off for gently contoured Norfolk.

1991 Choice Jan. 18/3 When the bike was brought round to Joan's home..she..kick-started the machine without any difficulty and set off.

1992 National Trust Mag. Autumn 12/3 The cyclists..took on the circular 21- or 42-mile routes on a wide variety of pedal-powered machines.

1848 N.Y. Herald 8 Oct. A fac simile of the renowned [fireman] Mose, which, like the original, looks as though he had ‘determined to not run wid de machine any more’.

1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) 259 Machine, the name for a fire-engine among the New York ‘b'hoys’.

1890 Cent. Dict. To run with the machine, to accompany a fire-engine to a fire.

1883 S. Plimsoll in 19th Cent. July 147 The box..is called by many names, as ‘van’, ‘machine’, ‘tank’, ‘trunk’, &c.

1883 S. Plimsoll in 19th Cent. July 162 The ‘kit’ haddocks are put loose into what are called machines. These machines are long boxes lined with lead..divided internally into four equal spaces.

1872 Ann. Rep. Aëronaut. Soc. 15 One man power would be sufficient to drive an aëroplane machine twenty miles an hour.]

1896 H. S. Maxim in Aeronaut. Ann. 2 38 The next machine..was on the kite or aeroplane system.

1909 Aeronautics Dec. 151 Any machine—'plane or dirigible.

1919 ‘B. Cable’ Old Contemptibles viii. 124 He paid more attention now to watching for enemy machines, and never failed..to rush his pilot to a machine and into the air if a German was reported in sight.

1944 ‘N. Shute’ Pastoral iv. 89 The machine before them opened out and trundled down the runway.

1993 Men's Health Jan. 72/1 The pilot got the damaged machine 60 feet into the air before it rolled over and crashed.

1901 McClure's Mag. 18 i. 21/2 His assistant crouching at his feet out of range of the swift-flying currents of air produced by the mad flight of the machine.

1915 Sat. Evening Post 3 Apr. 62/2 The reliability of the machine was so amazing that, in seven years of business, not a single breakdown had been reported.

1929 D. Hammett Red Harvest xv. 154 The machine that had been trailing us came into sight around a bend in the road..and unloaded its cargo of men and weapons.

1954 F. L. Wright Natural House ii. 140 Because we have the automobile, we can go far and fast and when we get there, we have other machines to use—the tractor or whatever else you may want to use.

1970 W. Berry Hidden Wound iv. 35 Our grandfather would get into a recurrent fantasy..about buying a machine, which was his word for an automobile.

1648 Moderate No. 23. 207 He hath brought from that Countrey the invention of a Machine, being Airie, & of a construction so light, nevertheless so sound and firm, that the same is able to bear two men, and hold them up in the Air.

1650 J. Bulwer Anthropometamorphosis 92 In the curious Machin of speech, the Nose is added as a Recorder.

1707 tr. P. Le Lorrain de Vallemont Curiosities in Husbandry & Gardening 27 The Microscope..has been but lately discover'd: for the Naturalists..were not aided by that Machine.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Racket A Machine, which the Savages of Canada bind to their Feet, to walk more commodiously over the Snow.

1794 A. Thomas Newfoundland Jrnl. (1968) 89 Our Cold Collation was eat off Scallop Shells..; the machine to drink out of was a West India Cronk Shell.

1805 T. Jefferson Let. 8 Feb. in Writings (1984) 1157 A Mr Hawkins..has invented a machine which he calls a polygraph, and which carries two, three, or four pens.

1849 Cultivator 7 52 I have used a wooden machine, made like a cranberry rake,..to gather my clover-seed this season.

1872 ‘M. Twain’ Roughing It liv. 397 He figured up his accounts on a machine like a grid-iron with buttons strung on its bars.

1914 S. Lewis Our Mr. Wrenn xiii. 171 He put a cent in the machine which good-naturedly drops out boxes of matches.

1956 Evening Telegram (St. John's, Newfoundland) 12 Dec. 5 He wrestled with the problem of designing a machine that would consistently catch fish while he slept [sc. a cod-trap].

1965 in Dict. Newfoundland Eng. (1982) 318/2 There's a mat-hook here somewhere—a little machine like a sewing awl.

1983 W. Weaver tr. U. Eco Name of Rose (1984) 213 Suppose we had a machine that tells us where north is... A machine of the sort has been constructed, and some navigators have used it... It exploits the power of a marvellous stone..that attracts iron.

1659 T. St. Serfe tr. S. de Cyrano de Bergerac Σεληναρχια sig. D3v I caused a Machine to be made of Iron..and being well seated in the seat, I cast my Magnetique Bowl into the Air.

1673 J. Ray Observ. Journey Low-countries 5 This kind of Machin is generally used..for raising up Water.

1757 tr. J. G. Keyssler Trav. II. 136 For raising this obelisk out of the ground,..Fontana contrived forty-one machines.

1797 J. Robison in Encycl. Brit. XVII. 743/2 It is certain that the account given in the Century of Inventions could instruct no person who was not sufficiently acquainted with the properties of steam to be able to invent the machine himself.

1832 D. Brewster Lett. Nat. Magic xi. 292 The calculating-machine now constructing under the superintendence of the inventor [sc. Charles Babbage].

1851 W. B. Carpenter Man. Physiol. (ed. 2) iii. 96 Examining the component parts of the Machine,—its springs, wheels, levers, cords, pulleys, &c.

1881 W. Thomson in Nature No. 619. 434 Windmills as hitherto made are very costly machines.

1888 Pall Mall Gaz. 12 Apr. 12/1 An Automatic Gas Machine... The machine is charged with one of the first products of petroleum, or gasolene.

1902 Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin. (ed. 3) 444 Semi-automatics, these constitute a large class of machines which occupy a middle position between the..‘full’ automatic machines and those which involve the constant attendance of an operator.

1908 Essex Rev. 17 23 The flail has been displaced by a steam threshing-machine, the barn-fan and the shaul by a winnowing-machine.

1939 Fortune Oct. 127/1 (advt.) The methods, machines, tools and compounds necessary to merge rubber, metal and plastics into the smart steering wheels.

1948 S. Bellow Spanish Let. in Partisan Rev. Feb. 230 He recognized me as an American, one of the new lords of the earth,..full of the pride of machines and dollars.

1953 Manch. Guardian Weekly 3 Dec. 15/2 Many factories are spending large sums on ‘automation’, that is, the adoption of automatic machines working together with little labour.

1957 N. Chapin Introd. Automatic Computers ii. 5 In addition to digital computers, there is an important group of computing machines known as analog computers.

1962 Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing (B.S.I.) 92 Tabulator (accounting machine), a machine which reads data from a medium..and produces lists, tables or totals.

1968 Times 11 Oct. 8/2 Thorpe has analysed the fish-calls of 40 sandwich terns by means of a sound spectrograph, a machine which analyses sounds, in terms of their pitch and loudness and produces a graphical representation of the sound.

1970 Washington Post 30 Sept. B.14/1 The stoves, the refrigerators and other machines.

1977 J. Lee Tales Boatmen Told viii. 97 Before the advent of the washing machines people would boil their soiled clothing in wash boilers.

1987 D. Rowe Beyond Fear iii. 96 We no longer send five-year-olds into the factory to tend the machines.

1991 M. Mackie Gender Relations Canada i. 1/2 A bank teller discovers she will soon be replaced by an automated banking machine.

1991 What Personal Computer Dec. 146/2 While all PCs are broadly similar, each machine has a unique memory map in the 640Kb to 1,024Kb region.

1782 J. Woodforde Diary 19 Feb. (1926) II. 9 She made it up also in the Buffon Fashion, she having borrowed Mrs. Custance's machine.

1809 Jrnl. Nat. Philos. Nov. 173 It may be of some amusement to some of your readers to see a machine rise in the air by mechanical means... The little machine is completed.

1825 T. C. Hansard Typographia 699 The machine being put in motion, the paper which is to be printed is laid upon a board, passed through, and receives the impression on one side.

1825 T. C. Hansard Typographia 700 One machine was to perform the work of eight presses.

1833 Penny Mag. Monthly Suppl. Nov.–Dec. 508/2 One thousand perfect copies..could only have been daily produced at one press by the labour of two men. The machine produces sixteen thousand copies.

1872 Young Englishwoman Oct. 566/2 I allow myself..three new stuff dresses, the latter never cost me more than £1 10s. each, as I have a machine and make all at home.

1891 W. D. Howells in ‘Twain’ & Howells Mark Twain–Howell's Lett. (1960) II. 639 The machine with which this letter is written is a Hammond.

1900 F. M. Ford Let. Oct. (1965) 10 My dear Galsworthy, Excuse my writing by machine; Christine at this moment monopolizes the only pen there is in the house.

1906 Awards, Recomm. (N.Z. Dept. Labour) 626 In sheds where machines are used..the shearers to pay for combs and cutters at cost price.

1915 Southward's Mod. Printing (ed. 3) II. i. 1 In the printing office the hand press is spoken of as the ‘press’ and the machine press as the ‘machine’... The press can be worked by hand power only; the machine may be driven by steam, gas, or other motive power.

1926 People's Home Jrnl. Feb. 18/1 First of all, before starting your sewing, give the machine a thorough overhauling.

1931 E. Bliss Saraband iii. 146 She sat down at a typewriter and put her case on the floor; she always tried to get the same machine, because one got used to a machine.

1940 Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Jan. 16/1 ‘Anyone,’ [Old Harry] declared, ‘could put up tallies with machines. With the tongs now—’..Harry produced half a dozen pairs of tongs and some sheep.

1941 G. Marx Let. in G. Marx et al. Groucho Lett. (1967) 48 They will wind up at Las Vegas playing the machines.

1946 Ann. Computation Lab. Harvard Univ. 1 Foreword Harvard University's need for a machine such as the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator has long been a matter of discussion.

1954 First Gloss. Programming Terminol. (Assoc. Computing Machinery) 4 Computer code (Machine code), the code representing the operations built into the hardware of the computer.

1956 G. Bowen Wool Away! (ed. 2) i. 9 Relative quality of workmanship between blades and machines is a debatable point.

1957 D. D. McCracken Digital Computer Programming ii. 14 The first two digits [of the instruction]..tell the machine what to do.

1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xix. 306 A company which changes computers normally changes to a machine which is considerably faster than the old one.

1984 V. S. Naipaul Finding Centre i. 21 He was a tailor now..; and he sat at his machine in his open shop.

1986 Marist Messenger Dec. 34 There's nothing spooking the sheep. They're quiet enough. It could be one of the boys setting up machines.

1993 Economist 7 Aug. 44/3 Mr Sharpe remembers playing illegal machines in the lobbies of adult cinemas.

1891 G. P. Williams in A. E. Woodhouse N.Z. Farm & Station Verse (1950) 26 What a lot [of money] you left behind in the ‘machine’.

1900 J. Scott Tales Colonial Turf 218 The bookmakers would not pay 30–1 as the machine is doing.

1903 Sporting News (Launceston, Tasmania) 11 July 1/5 His or her investment on the machine, either straight-out or for a place.

1939 Taranaki Herald (New Plymouth, N.Z.) 23 Aug. 3 An electric machine has a tremendous advantage over the old manual totalisator.

1949 Southern Cross (Wellington) 15 Aug. 9 Each paid more than £25 on the win machine.

1890 Cent. Dict. at Machine Logical machine, a machine, which, being fed with premises, produces the necessary conclusions from them.]

1936 A. M. Turing in Proc. London Math. Soc. 42 231 We may compare a man in the process of computing a real number to a machine which is only capable of a finite number of conditions q₁, q₂.., q_R which will be called ‘m-configurations’. The machine is supplied with a ‘tape’ (the analogue of paper) running through it.

1957 N. Chomsky Syntactic Structures iii. 18 Suppose that we have a machine that can be in any one of a finite number of different internal states... Any language that can be produced by a machine of this sort we call a finite state language; and we can call the machine itself a finite state grammar.

1968 Brit. Jrnl. Psychiatry 114 1487/1 The experience of the last twenty years has shown that, apart from mathematical subtleties, all the various attempted definitions of ‘machine’ prove to be practically identical... All have tended towards the various forms of ‘semi-group’: a set of states (the machine) and an operator (its laws) such that unlimitedly repeated action by the operator on the states cannot generate a state outside the set.

1992 New Scientist 14 Mar. 49/1 Theoretical logical ‘machines’..also provide..the basis for the ‘state machine’, an intriguing alternative to the more conventional procedural, functional or declarative programming languages.

1676 T. Guidott Disc. Bathe xiv. 116 More clear and active spirits, the wheels and machines of all sense and motion.

1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones II. vi. ii. 234 The great State Wheels in all the political Machines of Europe. View more context for this quotation

1801 Duke of Wellington Dispatches (1837) I. 342 More experience than we have yet had of the operation of the court (of the manner in which the machine works).

1809–10 S. T. Coleridge Friend (1887) xv. 64 To expose the folly and the legerdemain of those who have thus abused the blessed machine of language.

1838 N.Y. Advertiser & Express 21 Mar. 3/5 The United States Bank was a great political machine, and as such exerted great political influence.

1876 L. Stephen Hist. Eng. Thought 18th Cent. II. ix. iii. 19 The Church was excellent as a national refrigerating machine.

a1911 D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) I. xxiv. 454 He tapped his forehead with his finger. ‘This is a machine for making plays. Everything that's put into it will be grist for it.’

1950 I. Berlin in Foreign Affairs 28 373 The organization of society as a smoothly-working machine providing for the needs of such of its members as are permitted to survive.

1989 B. Alberts et al. Molecular Biol. Cell (ed. 2) v. 219 Protein synthesis in present-day organisms centers on a very large ribonucleoprotein machine, the ribosome.

1676 tr. B. Lamy Art of Speaking ii. iii. ii. sig. H^v Those who have fancied them [sc. animals] but Machins, have show'd..their Bodies to be so organiz'd, that they may perform those actions without assistance from the Soul.

1683 T. Hoy Agathocles 18 Mere Machins! yet the Movement hid so well, They [sc. people] seem to act from a Free Principle.

1692 R. Bentley Boyle Lect. ii. 29 If [brutes] be bare Engines and Machins.

1779 A. Hamilton Let. 14 Mar. in Papers (1961) II. 19 The nearer the soldiers approach to machines perhaps the better.

1809 S. T. Coleridge Friend 12 Oct. 134 Man must be free; or to what purpose was he made a Spirit of Reason, and not a Machine of Instinct?

1821 Ld. Byron Marino Faliero (2nd issue) i. ii. 21 They are..mere machines, To serve the nobles' most patrician pleasure.

1830 T. Carlyle Jrnl. in J. A. Froude First Forty Years (1882) II. iv. 90 Wherefore their system [sc. Utilitarianism] is a machine and cannot grow or endure.

1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt I. i. 35 I'll have old Hickes. He was a neat little machine of a butler.

1890 ‘L. Falconer’ Mademoiselle Ixe (1891) 108 I believe women think horses are machines, and made of cast-iron too.

1895 Outing 27 248/2 Too much preparation..makes a man a mere machine, set to go off at a particular day.

a1911 D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) II. iv. 70 Susan was compelled to..the lot that will be the common lot as long as there are people..to force men and women and children to degrade themselves into machines as wage-slaves.

1942 P. Gallico Lou Gehrig viii. 97 Koenig was..a precision machine at getting a man along to second [base] with hit or sacrifice.

1980 W. Abish How German is It? iii. iv. 72 A nice gesture on the part of the driver. It made the bus service a bit more human. The system was less of a machine.

1990 G. Snyder Pract. of Wild iv. 79 Weeding out the wild from the natures of..cattle and pigs..changed animals which are intelligent and alert in the wild into sluggish meat-making machines.

1927 tr. ‘Le Corbusier’ Towards New Archit. 4 The house is a machine for living in.

1934 A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 132 Le Corbusier himself could hardly have done the trick better: King's is the perfect machine-for-praying-in.

1960 R. W. Marks Dymaxion World Buckminster Fuller 22/1 The house was actually the world's first tangible embodiment of what one French architect hopefully designated as a ‘Machine-for-Living’.

1966 ‘J. Melville’ Nell Alone vii. 75 The whole house was..a machine for Mrs Richier to live in.

1990 D. Cruickshank & N. Burton Life in Georgian City ii. ii. 96/1 Georgian town houses probably worked fairly well as machines for living.