mechanicallyadv.

1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Math. Præf. sig. cij^v Thus, may you Double the Cube Mechanically.

1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Math. Præf. sig. ciij Though it be Naturally done and Mechanically: yet hath it a good Demonstration Mathematicall.

1656 tr. T. Hobbes Elements Philos. iii. xx. 233 The Antients pronounced it impossible, to exhibit in a plaine the Division of Angles,..otherwise then mechanically.

1737 H. Bracken Farriery Improved xli. 561 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 E. K. Kane Arctic Explor. 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.

1940 Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 44 373 The current control can be carried out..mechanically by means of a special cascade transformer.

1988 S. Afr. Panorama Apr. 33/1 The green husks around the nuts are removed..either by hand or mechanically.

1649 C. Sydenham Eng. Transl. Sc. Declar. 27 They do mechanically follow their and our Enemy (called the King).

1668 N. Culpeper & A. Cole tr. T. Bartholin Anat. (new ed.) i. 68 I cannot as yet perswade my self, that all things are done rudely and mechanically in the Body.

1690 J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding ii. x. 67 For tho' I should grant Sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal Spirits, in the Brains of those Birds..yet that can never be supposed a Reason, why it should cause mechanically..such a motion in the Organs of the Bird's voice, as should conform it to the Notes of a foreign Sound.

1693 R. Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. 6 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. Marquis 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 Family II. 91 Emma, almost indifferent to every thing, followed her mechanically.

1853 C. Brontë Villette III. xl. 259 The place could not be entered. Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I mechanically dressed.

1864 C. Dickens Our Mutual Friend (1865) I. ii. i. 163 He could do mental arithmetic mechanically.

1915 D. H. Lawrence Rainbow xv. 407 Mechanically, from habit, she went on with her studies.

1967 E. Short Embroidery & Fabric Collage i. 33 The needle..does not follow a mechanically set pattern.

1985 I. Murdoch Good Apprentice ii. 200 There was something great here once, but we're just carrying it on mechanically in a pretend way.

1651 N. Biggs Matæotechnia Medicinæ Praxeωs 214 As if a medicine should not worke Physically, but mechanically, mathematically or demonstratively only.

1660 R. Boyle New Exper. Physico-mechanicall 26 The returning of Elastical Bodies..to their former position, may be Mechanically explicated.

1740 H. Bracken Farriery Improv'd (ed. 2) II. iv. 88 We ought to explain the Thing mechanically.

a1839 S. T. Coleridge & J. Gillman Hints towards Theory of Life (1848) 54 The hypomochlion of the lever is as good an illustration as anything can be that is thought of mechanically only.

1861 H. Spencer Educ. (1888) 18 The mechanically-justified wave-line principle.

1930 F. R. Tennant Philos. Theol. II. ii. 38 Such a statement as that everything physical can be explained mechanically,..is too indefinite to be accepted or rejected until indication has been given as to which, among other half-dozen propositions, it is intended to assert or deny.

1685 R. Boyle Short Mem. Hist. Mineral Waters 23 Whether any thing..can be..discover'd..by Chymically and Mechanically examining the Mineral Earths [etc.].

1701 J. Ray Wisdom of God (ed. 3) ii. 370 They suppose, even the perfect Animals..to have been formed Mechanically among the rest.

1794 R. Kirwan Elements Mineral. (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 Domest. Amusem. 25 Being itself insolvable in any known menstruum, and acting mechanically only, it neither destroys nor is destructible.

1860 J. Tyndall Glaciers of Alps i. xxv. 177 The dust and thin smoke mechanically suspended in a London atmosphere.

1926 A. G. Tansley & T. F. Chipp Aims & Methods Study Vegetation vii. 116 The finer insoluble particles tend alone to be mechanically carried down, so that the coarser particles alone remain in the surface layers.

1959 R. A. Smith Semiconductors xii. 444 p-n junctions are generally much more stable mechanically than fine metal point contacts.

1984 J. F. Lamb et al. Essent. Physiol. (ed. 2) ii. 34 It is clear that cells in a tissue must be connected together mechanically.

1726 J. Swift Gulliver I. i. vi. 107 Having a Head mechanically turned,..I had made for myself a Table and Chair.

1788 N.Y. Daily Gaz. 30 Dec. A Work very useful for the working Mechanic, or the Gentleman mechanically inclined.

1890 Internat. Ann. Anthonys Photogr. Bull. 201 Any mechanically inclined man can make one in a day.

1910 G. R. Lomer Concept of Method vi. 50 The whole machinery of the universe is machinery only to the mechanically-minded man.

1931 F. L. Allen Only Yesterday 13 A mechanically inclined boy has a wireless set, with which, if he knows the Morse code, he may listen to messages from ships at sea.

1972 G. Durrell Catch me Colobus ii. 45 Oscar the orang-utan,..the most mechanically-minded of all the apes.

1991 J. Garreau Edge City iv. 107 The second belonged to those mechanically inclined yeoman who had flocked to Detroit as it became a wood-forming and metal-bashing center.

1613 J. Chamberlain Let. 4 Feb. (1939) I. 417 But his [sc. Sir T. Bodley's] servants murmure and grumble most, with whom he hath dealt very mecaanically [sic]: some of them having served him..above two and twenty yeare.