Word.ws English Dictionary

machine elf

Syllables: ma·chine elfUK/məˈʃiːn ɛlf/

machine elf noun: a kind of otherworldly humanoid figure sometimes seen during dimethyltryptamine (DMT) hallucinations.

Noun

machine elf (plural machine elves)

  1. A kind of otherworldly humanoid figure sometimes seen during dimethyltryptamine (DMT) hallucinations.
    • […] I describe them as self-transforming machine elves, for that is how they appear. These entities are dynamically contorting topological modules that are somehow distinct from the surrounding background, which is itself undergoing continuous transformation. […] The tryptamine Munchkins come...1983 December, Terence McKenna, “Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness”, in The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism...
    • I found myself in the sort of auric equivalent of the Pope's private chapel, and there were insect elf machines proffering strange little tablets with strange writing on them. And it all went on, they were speaking in some kind of—there were these self-transforming machine-elf creatures—were...1988, Diana Reed Slattery, quoting Terence McKenna, Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of Consciousness, Berkeley, Calif.: Evolver Editions, North Atlantic Books, published...

Forms of machine elf

pluralmachine elves

Origin of machine elf

Coined by American ethnobotanist and author Terence McKenna (1946–2000), who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychoactive plants.

Questions about machine elf

What does machine elf mean?
Machine elf means a kind of otherworldly humanoid figure sometimes seen during dimethyltryptamine (DMT) hallucinations.
What part of speech is machine elf?
Machine elf is a noun.
How do you pronounce machine elf?
Machine elf is pronounced /məˈʃiːn ɛlf/ (UK).
What is the plural of machine elf?
The plural of machine elf is machine elves.

Words near machine elf in the dictionary

  1. machine age
  2. machine code
  3. machine codes
  4. machine cycle
  5. machine cycles
  6. machine elf
  7. machine elves
  8. machine epsilon
  9. machine epsilons
  10. machine gun
  11. machine gunner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: machine elf (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-machine elf.ogg.

Cite this entry: “machine elf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/machine_elf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.