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The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral. The pain and sickness caused by manna are the effects of its operation on the stomach. Locke. Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection. Dryden.

"The employment of subjective and objective mechanical means to determine the accomodative and refractive states of the eye and the scope of its function in general."

The treatment of deformities in the human body by mechanical appliances.

Done merely to get rid of a duty; performed mechanically and as a thing of rote; done in a careless and superficial manner; characterized by indifference; as, perfunctory admonitions. Macaulay.

A drawing in linear perspective. Isometrical perspective, an inaccurate term for a mechanical way of representing objects in the direction of the diagonal of a cube. -- Perspective glass, a telescope which shows objects in the right position.

An instrument for the mechanical registration and reproduction of audible sounds, as articulate speech, etc. It consists of a rotating cylinder or disk covered with some material easily indented, as tinfoil, wax, paraffin, etc., above which is a thin plate carrying a stylus. As the plate vibrates under the influence of…

To engrave by a photomechanical process; to make a photo- engraving of. -- Pho`to-en*grav"er (#), n.

To engrave, or make an engraving of, by any photomechanical process involving etching of the plate.

A colored print made photomechanically.

A photomechanical process similar to collotype.

Any print made by a photomechanical process.

Designating a photomechanical process for making reproductions in natural colors by three printings.

The whole machinery and apparatus employed in carrying on a trade or mechanical business; also, sometimes including real estate, and whatever represents investment of capital in the means of carrying on a business, but not including material worked upon or finished products; as, the plant of a foundry, a mill, or a rai…

To cover or overlay with gold, silver, or other metals, either by a mechanical process, as hammering, or by a chemical process, as electrotyping.

y of overlaying a base or dull metal with a thin plate of precious or bright metal, as by mechanical means or by electro-magnetic deposition.

That branch of science which treats of the mechanical properties of air and other elastic fluids, as of their weight, pressure, elasticity, etc. See Mechanics.

The science of the mechanic arts.

The rate at which mechanical energy is exerted or mechanical work performed, as by an engine or other machine, or an animal, working continuously; as, an engine of twenty horse power.

A plate prepared by a mechanical process, esp. a photomechanical process.

That of which one professed knowledge; the occupation, if not mechanical, agricultural, or the like, to which one devotes one's self; the business which one professes to understand, and to follow for subsistence; calling; vocation; employment; as, the profession of arms; the profession of a clergyman, lawyer, or physic…