mechanical vs operant

mechanical

noun
  • One who does manual labor, especially one who is similar to Shakespeare's rude mechanicals 

  • An instance of equipment failure. 

  • A stop on an organ that is operated by a hand or foot control rather than having to be manually set up in advance. 

  • A mechanical engineer. 

  • Manually created layout of artwork that is camera ready for photographic reproduction. 

  • A robot or mechanical creature. 

adj
  • Related to mechanics (the branch of physics that deals with forces acting on mass). 

  • Acting as if one were a machine: lifeless or mindless. 

  • Handy with machines. 

  • Using mechanics (the design and construction of machines): being a machine. 

  • Done by machine. 

  • Related to mechanics (the design and construction of machines). 

  • As if performed by a machine: lifeless or mindless. 

operant

noun
  • An operative person or thing. 

  • Any of a class of behaviors that produce consequences by operating (i.e., acting) upon the environment. 

adj
  • That operates to produce an effect. 

How often have the words mechanical and operant occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )