adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a mechanical device (=using power from an engine or machine)
▪ One day it will be technically possible to replace patients’ hearts with mechanical devices.
mechanical engineering
mechanical pencil
mechanical/electrical/software etc engineer
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
purely
▪ The basic picture we need is a purely mechanical one.
▪ She was so mesmerised by their fixed scrutiny that her action was purely mechanical.
▪ The former, in so far as he considers explanations at all, inclines to those that stress the purely mechanical relations between events.
▪ The thinker, on the other hand, finds purely mechanical explanations inadequate.
■ NOUN
clock
▪ With the gradual introduction of mechanical clocks around the fourteenth century, hours of standard length became general.
▪ Unlike mechanical clocks, which are completely blind to their surroundings, a biological clock gets reset every day by the sun.
▪ The first mechanical clocks were large and unwieldy, and there was soon a desire for smaller and more portable mechanisms.
▪ But like a single gear in a mechanical clock, timeless can not keep good time all by itself.
▪ Despite the invention of the mechanical clock, for most people time remained uneven in quality.
▪ According to our present knowledge, this machine was the nearest the artificers of antiquity came to inventing a truly mechanical clock.
▪ It would seem that the date of the invention of the mechanical clock is probably some time between 1280 and 1300.
device
▪ No mechanical devices or hormones are used.
▪ But the Earth as mechanical device has been a harder idea to swallow.
▪ Similar mechanical devices are planned for the space station.
▪ Simple mechanical devices were placed in the test room to maintain an accurate record of output.
digger
▪ Read in studio Thieves have used a mechanical digger to smash their way into a supermarket and steal a safe.
▪ The police admit there's little shopkeepers can do to protect their property from a mechanical digger.
▪ The operator of the mechanical digger who unearthed both was not sure.
energy
▪ This occurs as the result of toxins that form as mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy.
▪ Together with differential rotation, this causes a large amount of mechanical energy and magnetic flux to pass through the surface.
▪ The accumulation of capital, and hence the ownership of capital, was central in harnessing the productive power of mechanical energy.
engineer
▪ The electronics package will demand more space within the casing than the mechanical engineers can provide.
▪ I think the world will always need mechanical engineers.
▪ Tien insists he wants to go back to teaching and research as a mechanical engineer.
▪ At a drop zone there she met Steve, a tall, outgoing mechanical engineer who built jet engines.
▪ In 1923 Gresley became chief mechanical engineer of the London and North Eastern, following the merger of independent companies into groups.
engineering
▪ They were of various sizes and worked in the vehicle, aerospace, mechanical engineering and electronics industries.
▪ Low payers were public administration, wholesale distribution, metal manufacture and mechanical engineering.
▪ In the survey mentioned above, the health sector was second only to mechanical engineering in the proportion of employers experiencing difficulties.
▪ The first year at university I had a very steady boyfriend who was doing a similar course as me but mechanical engineering.
▪ The next industry to adopt the technique widely is likely to be mechanical engineering.
▪ The Group invested £1.5 million in the United Arab Emirates to establish two high quality mechanical engineering workshops.
▪ Even after the main recession, heavy national declines occurred in mechanical engineering, motor vehicles and metals.
failure
▪ Police say mechanical failure has not yet been ruled out.
▪ The crashes have been attributed to a variety of problems, from human error to software glitches to mechanical failure.
▪ It was no goddam accident, no goddam mechanical failure, some one deliberately unhitched that car.
▪ Nothing, save an accident or mechanical failure could keep him from winning.
▪ Take-off even in the conventional manner is a critical phase, unforgiving of mechanical failure or human error.
▪ If it proves to be a mechanical failure, additional safety measures may be required.
▪ Due to mechanical failure the remaining six races had to be abandoned.
▪ For a long time, three main theories dominated discussion of the tragedy: bomb, missile or mechanical failure.
fault
▪ It is thought he lifted the cab after a mechanical fault and it crashed on top of him.
▪ Driver error, or mechanical fault?
▪ Police believe it was a mechanical fault.
means
▪ When the astronaut is in a uniform gravitational field he is incapable of determining his motion by any mechanical means.
▪ It employs mechanical means to organise molecules into a monolayer on the surface of a liquid.
▪ In the latter case, thermal expansion of the wire proportional to the heating is sensed by mechanical means.
▪ Examples of technical failures of mechanical means of soil conservation have already been given in Chapter 5.
▪ Their efforts certainly often lacked the rhythm and phrasing suitable for interpretation by physical and not mechanical means.
method
▪ But there are conservatives, who, while acknowledging the successes of quantum mechanical methods, caution against complacency.
▪ There are various mechanical methods, such as spring-line based units.
▪ And because organisms replicate themselves, they could be far less expensive than chemical or mechanical methods.
philosophy
▪ This utilitarian emphasis lay at the heart of William Sellers's mechanical philosophy.
problem
▪ Lei Feng is under a truck fixing a mechanical problem.
▪ On any given day, nearly half of its planes could not fly because of mechanical problems.
▪ Toiv confirmed that the aircraft had mechanical problems.
▪ The vehicles ended up on used car lots where buyers were unaware of past mechanical problems.
▪ The choice of dimensions appropriate to a quantum mechanical problem will depend on the number of independent possibilities the system possesses.
▪ Do see weaknesses as mechanical problems, which, with consistent and focused tweaking, you can fix.
▪ Well that's enough of mechanical problems lets have some questions.
▪ The man claims he overheard cockpit conversation about mechanical problems, not paperwork.
process
▪ I have always thought it was the Ofsted view of education as a mechanical process that eliminated sweetness and light.
▪ But it does require a peculiarly narrow and mechanical process of thought and it discourages all other.
▪ The analogy with a mechanical process no longer rings true and it is unlikely that this case will be followed.
▪ Lister was the inventor of several mechanical processes which made his fortune, and he duly became Lord Masham.
▪ Later, punched-card and computer technology made this an entirely mechanical process.
▪ They seemed demoralized and miserable, operating an endless mechanical process.
▪ The mechanical process of elegant correction and rephrasing cut out the ugly, self-stultifying labouring of mistakes.
▪ Writing an essay is not a mechanical process.
property
▪ Research in other cell lines has suggested that the mechanical properties of the substratum are important in the maintenance of cellular differentiation.
▪ A rather less important effect, from the practical point of view, is to change the mechanical properties.
▪ The other mechanical properties of wood are very much what we should expect from a bundle of tubes or fibres.
▪ The presence of this amount of water in the polymer also affects its mechanical properties.
▪ Rock mechanical property computations, estimation of in-situ stress directions and fracture detection completed the study.
▪ Each element is mathematically coupled to its neighbours in a way which reflects the physical and mechanical properties of the structure.
system
▪ The first system to break away from the conventional mechanical systems was blessed with the name of Le Stik.
▪ Most mechanical systems follow the clock.
▪ This mechanical system was not directly presented to our five senses.
▪ This means that the performance of human systems tends to be far more variable and less predictable than that of mechanical systems.
▪ In Section 24.3, therefore, we digress from fluid dynamics to look at a non-fluid mechanical system.
▪ All over the world measurements are continually being made on quantum mechanical systems.
▪ It is these induced voltages which are used to extract energy from the mechanical system and provide electromagnetic damping.
ventilation
▪ Twenty two patients managed with spontaneous breathing of 28-40% oxygen and the others needed mechanical ventilation.
▪ An effort should be made to improve pulmonary function as much as possible; mechanical ventilation may be needed in some cases.
▪ Before Waite J. the doctors were unanimous that mechanical ventilation should not be provided, if the occasion for it arose.
▪ They had built-in wardrobes in all bedrooms and a whole-house mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.
▪ Important projects include the development of advanced mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems, right through from conception to full commercialisation.
work
▪ We have virtually finished the mechanical work on it and the engine and chassis are in almost original condition.
▪ Put the board to one side and start the mechanical work.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A mechanical problem may be to blame for the crash.
▪ A mechanical Santa made toys in the store window.
▪ Flemma said that a reliable mechanical device was needed for the thousands of patients who die while awaiting human heart transplants.
▪ In a bakery, the bread is rarely kneaded by hand but by large mechanical mixers.
▪ The flight has been canceled due to mechanical failure.
▪ the space shuttle's mechanical arm
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As one microchip usually replaces many mechanical parts, the amount of labour needed in assembly is reduced.
▪ But the Earth as mechanical device has been a harder idea to swallow.
▪ He loved anything mechanical, did Walter.
▪ He watched the men harden to the mechanical slaughter.
▪ Of course anything as scientific as a mechanical test has not always found favour with traditional craftsmen or indeed with business men.
▪ Oliver Evans had been a genius of steam and iron, of the mechanical arts.
▪ This occurs as the result of toxins that form as mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy.
▪ Unlike mechanical clocks, which are completely blind to their surroundings, a biological clock gets reset every day by the sun.