mechanistic
/ˌmɛkəˈnɪstɪk/
mechanistic adjective: having the impersonal and automatic characteristics of a machine.
Adjective
mechanistic (comparative more mechanistic, superlative most mechanistic)
- Having the impersonal and automatic characteristics of a machine.
- Predetermined by, or as if by, a mechanism.
- Having a physical or biological cause.
- Such ateleological explanation is what is meant by mechanistic explanation in the broad sense.1908, William McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology, section 449
Examples of mechanistic in a sentence
- If possible, models should be interpreted in terms of their mechanistic meaning.
- No, medicine is not an art , it is a science, but a mechanistic, unalive one.
- This form of scientism is not based on linear causality, as mechanistic thought is; rather, it is based on circular causality.
Forms of mechanistic
| comparative | more mechanistic |
|---|---|
| superlative | most mechanistic |
Origin of mechanistic
From mechan(ism) + -istic.
Words formed from mechanistic
Questions about mechanistic
- What does mechanistic mean?
- Mechanistic means having the impersonal and automatic characteristics of a machine.
- What part of speech is mechanistic?
- Mechanistic is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce mechanistic?
- Mechanistic is pronounced /ˌmɛkəˈnɪstɪk/.
Words near mechanistic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mechanistic (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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