mechanical [LME] Both mechanical and machine [M16th] go back to Greek mēkhanikē ‘machine’. Originally mechanical and mechanic [LME] were more or less interchangeable, but nowadays the first primarily means ‘operated by or relating to a machine’ or ‘done without thought, automatic’, and the second refers to a skilled worker. An old meaning of both is ‘a manual labourer or artisan’, as in ‘A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, / That work for bread, upon Athenian stalls’ from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (rude here meaning ‘unsophisticated’).