a. and sb. [ad. L. technic-us (Quint.), a. Gr. τεχνικ-ός of or pertaining to art, f. τέχνη art, craft: see -IC. So F. technique (1721 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
A. adj. 1. Pertaining to art, or to an art: = TECHNICAL. Now rare.
1612. Sturtevant, Metallica, iii. 49. Define the Technick part.
1714. Mandeville, Fab. Bees (1729), II. vi. 347. All technick Words … and Terms of Art, belong to the respective Artists and Dealers, that primarily and literally make use of them in their Business.
1760. Phil. Trans., LI. 756. Terms … used in the strict technic sense.
1845. R. W. Hamilton, Pop. Educ. (ed. 2), viii. 187. The inhabitant of a manufacturing town has frequent proof of the intellectual difference between the rural, and the technic labourer.
1905. Contemp. Rev., March, 425. Our practical problem is now a technic and constructive one.
2. Skillfully made or constructed. [After Gr. τεχνικός (Hippocrates).] rare–1.
1877. Blackie, Wise Men, 245. What a wealth of sounds Wends through the technic chambers of the ear.
B. sb. 1. A technical term, expression, point, or detail; a technicality. Chiefly U.S. rare.
1826. T. Flint, Recoll. Valley Mississippi, 86. A process, which, in the technics of the [Mississippi] boatmen is called bush-whacking.
1872. T. L. Cuyler, Heart Th., 8. A right estimate of sin … is a vital point in the soul’s salvation: it is more than a technic of theology.
1875. Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Greatness Wks. (Bohn), III. 272. I find it easy to translate all his [Napoleon’s] technics into all of mine.
2. Technical details or methods collectively; the technical department of a subject; esp. the formal or mechanical part of an art (now more commonly TECHNIQUE, q.v.).
[1798. Willich, Adelung’s Elem. Crit. Philos., 181. Technic 1, in a proper sense, means art, causality according to ideas, purposes.]
1855. Lewes, Goethe, I. I. v. 49. His impatient susceptibility which … prevented his ever thoroughly mastering the technic of any one subject.
1867. M. Arnold, Celtic Lit., 142. Icelandic poetry … shows a powerful and developed technic.
1887. Lowell, Old Eng. Dram. (1892), 56. In the technic of this art, perfection can be reached only by long training.
b. Collective pl. Technics in same sense: also construed as a singular.
1850. Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 257. Antique vases … also, very grandly and beautifully designed, of the more perfect style of technics.
1871. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. I. 256. Conformity to the accepted rules that constitute the technics of poetry.
1909. Contemp. Rev., Aug., 204. Literary technics, especially that of the novel, depends on reproducing experiments from life.
3. The science or study of art or arts, esp. of the mechanical or industrial arts: = TECHNOLOGY 1. Usually in pl. Technics.
1864. in Webster.
1865. S. H. Hodgson, Time & Space, II. ix. § 68. Technic and Teleologic are the two branches of practical knowledge … and are both together, as Ethic, opposed to Theoretic.
1874. R. Tyrwhitt, Sketch. Club, 87. You must study history, literature, and technics.
