You can picture the working parts inside a machine — the gears, springs, and levers that fit together and move so one job gets done, like the little train of wheels inside a watch that pushes the hands round.
From the word’s history
Mechanism comes (via Modern Latin mechanismus) from Greek mekhane 'machine, device, contrivance.' At its root it names a made device that does work — which is exactly the physical core, and every later sense borrows that 'inner works that make it go' picture.
mechanism 經由現代拉丁文 mechanismus，來自希臘文 mekhane「機器、裝置、器械」。字根指的就是「一件會做事的裝置」——正好是它的實體核心；後面每個引申義，都是借用「裡面那組讓它運轉的機件」這個畫面。
etymonline.com/word/mechanism
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
mechanismnoun/ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/
- 1
Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power.
- 2
Any combination of cams, gears, links, belts, chains and logical mechanical elements.
- A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.
- 3
A group of entities, such as objects, that interact together.
- A site that carried [sexually explicit] material, but that gated it off from children through credit cards or other mechanisms to verify the age of the user, would have an acceptable defense under the act.
- Whatever the mechanism, attempts to starve the beast through revenue shortages somehow seem to make the beast all the more voracious.
- 4
A mental, physical, or chemical process.
- 5
Any process of, or system designed to manage useful energy conversion.
- 6
human-sciencesphilosophysciencesThe theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。