Meanings
plural orphan-crushing machines · alternative orphan crushing machine
- InternetA notional machine representing a system or state of affairs that obviously facilitates suffering but is not acknowledged or examined, or for which no alternative is considered.
"we live in a society", said the orphan-crushing machine operator
2023 February 15, @lepetitereboot, Twitter (post), archived from the original on 17 May 20242 more examples
“ the orphan crushing machine isn’t the problem, it’s that people are using the orphan crushing machine wrong”
2023 August 9, @DreadBirate, X (post), archived from the original on 17 May 2024BREAKING: orphan-crushing machine manufacturer states there is 'no sign' of orphan-crushing machines being used to crush orphans
2024 January 22, @Nemertes_, X (post), archived from the original on 17 May 2024
Origin
Referencing a Twitter post by @pookleblinky on September 25, 2020: Every heartwarming human interest story in america is like "he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine" and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you'd need to pay to prevent it from being used.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
orphan-crushing machine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orphan-crushing%20machine
“orphan-crushing machine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orphan-crushing%20machine. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “orphan-crushing machine,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orphan-crushing%20machine.
Source: orphan-crushing machine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.