MACHINATION

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does machination mean? 

• MACHINATION (noun)
  The noun MACHINATION has 1 sense:

1. a crafty and involved plot to achieve your (usually sinister) ends

  Familiarity information: MACHINATION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MACHINATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A crafty and involved plot to achieve your (usually sinister) ends

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

intrigue; machination

Hypernyms ("machination" is a kind of...):

game; plot; secret plan (a secret scheme to do something (especially something underhand or illegal))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "machination"):

priestcraft (a derogatory reference to priests who use their influence to control secular or political affairs)

Derivation:

machinate (engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together)

machinate (arrange by systematic planning and united effort)

 Context examples 

I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But Mrs. Morland knew so little of lords and baronets, that she entertained no notion of their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to her daughter from their machinations.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And they enslaved you over again—but not frankly, as the true, noble men would do with weight of their own right arms, but secretly, by spidery machinations and by wheedling and cajolery and lies.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But through the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)