Etymology

mechanical

M3E1C3H4A1N1I1C3A1L1

Today it means: Characteristic of someone who does manual labour for a living; coarse, vulgar. Full definition →

Middle English mechanical ← Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? ← Old French mecanique
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*megʰ-der.?
  2. Ancient Greekμηχανή (mēkhanḗ)
  3. Ancient Greekμηχανικός (mēkhanikós)
  4. Latinmēchanicus
  5. Old Frenchmecanique
  6. Middle Englishmechanic
  7. Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
  8. Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
  9. Middle Englishmechanical
  10. English todaymechanical

From Middle English mechanical, mechanicalle, mechanycalle, equivalent to mechanic + -al.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.