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is devised; a device; a hostile or treacherous scheme; an artful design or plot. Devilish machinations come to naught. Milton. His ingenious machinations had failed. Macaulay.

The secret artifices or machinations of a few persons united in a close design; in intrigue. By cursed cabals of women. Dryden. Syn. - Junto; intrigue; plot; combination; conspiracy. -- Cabal, Combination, Faction. An association for some purpose considered to be bad is the idea common to these terms. A combination is…

Evil machination; guile; deceit. [Obs.] Gower.

ed also the Feast of Lots, instituted to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the machinations of Haman. Esther ix. 26.

for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Shak. Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

igor in the execution of law. Undue influence (Law), any improper or wrongful constraint, machination, or urgency of persuasion, by which one's will is overcome and he is induced to do or forbear an act which he would not do, or would do, if left to act freely. Abbott.