Definition of machination
1 : an act of machinating
2 : a scheming or crafty action or artful design intended to accomplish some usually evil end backstage machinations … that have dominated the film industry — Peter Bogdanovich
Explore Merriam-Webster
Examples of machination in a Sentence
incredibly complicated machinations to assassinate the president that inevitably failed
Recent Examples of machination from the Web
-
Lucy, too, has been wrecked by her family's bloody machinations.
-
Mueller looms as the greatest threat to Trump’s presidency, and is therefore the object of his chief strategist’s latest machinations.
-
The player is tasked with this guiding family as its various members scatter across Westeros, doing their best to hold power—and, of course, stay alive—in a world full of complicated political machinations, and occasionally outright betrayal.
-
No matter how clever Houston gets with machinations like this, either signing Tucker at a mid-level rate or acquiring him via sign-and-trade subjects the Rockets to the hard cap.
-
Mija, unlike her mercenary grandfather, was kept in the dark about Mirando’s machinations.
-
All those weird machinations in Philly may finally be morphing into something interesting for the 76ers.
-
The handling of Kane's injury and the cap machinations ruffled some feathers around the league.
-
Even as Ronaldo stewed this past week, Madrid’s internal machinations were working on a plot to land the French wunderkind who could be his long-term successor, Kylian Mbappe.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'machination.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of machination
15th century
Synonym Discussion of machination
Learn More about machination
-
See words that rhyme with machination Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for machination Spanish Central: Translation of machination Nglish: Translation of machination for Spanish speakers
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up machination? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
Writing? Check your grammar now!