The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Machinery \Ma*chin"er*y\ (m[.a]*sh[=e]n"[~e]r*[y^]), n. [From
   Machine: cf. F. machinerie.]
   1. Machines, in general, or collectively.
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   2. The working parts of a machine, engine, or instrument; as,
      the machinery of a watch.
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   3. The supernatural means by which the action of a poetic or
      fictitious work is carried on and brought to a
      catastrophe; in an extended sense, the contrivances by
      which the crises and conclusion of a fictitious narrative,
      in prose or verse, are effected.
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            The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the
            critics, to signify that part which the deities,
            angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem.
                                                  --Pope.
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   4. The means and appliances by which anything is kept in
      action or a desired result is obtained; a complex system
      of parts adapted to a purpose.
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            An indispensable part of the machinery of state.
                                                  --Macaulay.
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            The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan
            languages.                            --I. Taylor
                                                  (The
                                                  Alphabet).
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

machinery
    n 1: machines or machine systems collectively
    2: a system of means and activities whereby a social institution
       functions; "the complex machinery of negotiation"; "the
       machinery of command labored and brought forth an order"