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infernal machines

infernal machines is the plural of infernal machine.

Meaning of infernal machine

Noun

infernal machine (plural infernal machines)

  1. (dated) A bespoke machine comprising a large bomb and an unmanned vessel or carriage carrying it to a target
    • The Prince of Orange likewise had recourse to the destructive effects of an infernal machine, in order to bombard Havre-de-Grace, and to set it on fire.1810, Charles James, “Machines, Infernal”, in A New and Enlarged Military Dictionary, in French and English, 3rd edition, volume I, London: T. Egerton
  2. (dated) A booby-trap or improvised explosive device
    • The infernal machines employed generally consisted of a crude kind of hand grenade filled with gunpowder, and lit by means of a piece of ordinary fuze. The effect of these bombs appears, in most instances, to have been of a comparatively harmless character, doing very little damage to buildings...1894, Her Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives, Eighteenth Annual Report, for the Year 1893 (Command papers), volume C. 7417, London: HMSO, page 68

Questions about infernal machines

What is infernal machines the plural of?
Infernal machines is the plural of infernal machine.

Words near infernal machines in the dictionary

  1. inferiours
  2. infernal
  3. infernal device
  4. infernal devices
  5. infernal machine
  6. infernal machines
  7. infernal stone
  8. infernalism
  9. infernalisms
  10. infernalist
  11. infernalists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: infernal machines (page history and authors); infernal machine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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