[ad. Gr. τεχνολογία systematic treatment (of grammar, etc.), f. τέχνη art, craft: see -LOGY. So F. technologie (1812 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. A discourse or treatise on an art or arts; the scientific study of the practical or industrial arts.
1615. Buck, Third Univ. Eng., xlviii. An apt close of this general Technologie.
1628. Venner, Baths of Bathe, 9. Heere I cannot but lay open Baths Technologie.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Technology, a Description of Arts, especially the Mechanical.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), I. 19. Questions in technology in all its branches.
1881. P. Geddes, in Nature, 29 Sept., 524/2. Of economic physics, geology, botany, and zoology, of technology and the fine arts.
1882. Mechanical World, 4 March, 130/1. The Department of Applied Science and Technology.
2001. George W. Bush, Public Papers Pres. U.S., II. 14 Aug., 971/1. There’s a lot of people who don’t have faith in our technology in America. I have faith in technology.
b. transf. Practical arts collectively.
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 437. Little valued in European technology it [the chakazi, or ‘jackass’ copal] is exported to Bombay, where it is converted into an inferior varnish. Ibid. (1864), Dahome, II. 202. His technology consists of weaving, cutting canoes, making rude weapons, and in some places practising a rude metallurgy.
2. The terminology of a particular art or subject; technical nomenclature.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, v. 70. The mother of Life and Fountain of souls in Cabalisticall Technology is called Binah.
1793. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XI. 563. The port-customs, the technology, and the maritime laws, all wear marks of this original character.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), IV. 252. An engine, called, in the technology of that day, fork.
1862. Morn. Star, 21 May, Aluminium, and its alloy with copper—which the manufacturers, with a slight laxity of technology, denominate bronze.
† 3. = Gr. τεχνολογία: see etym. Obs. rare–1.
1683. Twells, Exam. Gram., Pref. 17. There were not any further Essays made in Technology, for above Fourscore years; but all men acquiesced in the Common Grammar.
