Log in or Sign up
  1. deus ex machina love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. In Greek and Roman drama, a god lowered by stage machinery to resolve a plot or extricate the protagonist from a difficult situation.
  2. n. An unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot.
  3. n. A person or event that provides a sudden and unexpected solution to a difficulty.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Any resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and that is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author, director, or developer to end the story in the way that he or she desired
  2. n. A contrived solution to a problem, relying on an agent external to the situation.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. any active agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an insoluble difficulty

Etymologies

  1. From Latin deus ex māchinā, from deus ("a god") + ex ("from") + machina ("a device, a scaffolding, an artifice") > calque from Ancient Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mêkhanễs theós) (Wiktionary)
  2. New Latin deus ex māchinā : Latin deus, god + Latin ex, from + Latin māchinā, ablative of māchina, machine (translation of Greek theos apo mēkhanēs). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Sorry, no example sentences found.

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. machine

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. latin

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘deus ex machina’.

More lists containing ‘deus ex machina’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • quotato When World War Two ended with Atomic Bombs, those Atomic Bombs were the ultimate Deus ex machina... Jun 21, 2009

  • ofravens as per dictionary.com: "an agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an apparently insoluble difficulty." fabulous. Apr 8, 2008

  • reesetee Good grief, sionnach--how could you have forgotten that it was chained_bear? No one's as weird--er...as creative--at such lists. Mar 11, 2008

  • sionnach Once again with the lemur-libelling. What is *wrong* with you people?

    OK, I probably should link to the relevant discussion so that people can understand this comment, but I've forgotten who had the 'this is not a Christmas word' list. No, wait - here it is! Mar 11, 2008

  • lindaness As in the trick Scott Adams' employs of having some improbable solution arrive at the end of the Drunken Lemurs Strike Back story:

    http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/02/drunken-lemurs.html Mar 10, 2008

Tweets

Looking for tweets for deus ex machina.

‘deus ex machina’ has been looked up 2974 times, loved by 8 people, added to 92 lists, commented on 5 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.