equipment

equipment, apparatus, machinery, paraphernalia, outfit, tackle, gear, matériel are comparable when they mean all the things that are used in a given work or are useful in effecting a given end.

Equipment usually covers everything needed for efficient operation or efficient service except the personnel; thus, the equipment for a polar expedition would include not only the vessels, instruments, and implements required but also the sleds, dogs, and supplies (as clothing, food, and medicines)

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the equipment of furnishings, utensils, and supplies required for setting up housekeeping

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Sometimes equipment is more limited in its application; thus, in railroading it covers only the rolling stock and not the roadbed and stations. In extended use equipment is also employed in reference to persons and covers the qualities and skills necessary to their efficiency or competency in a given kind of work knowledge, penetration, seriousness, sentiment, humor, Gray had them all; he had the equipment and endowment for the office of poet— Arnold)

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a health officer needed more than technical training .... It appeared that diplomacy should constitute a major part of his equipment— Heiser

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Apparatus usually covers the instruments, tools, machines, and appliances used in a given craft or profession or in a specific operation or the equipment used in a recreation or sport; thus, the apparatus of a dentist includes all the mechanical and electrical devices he uses in his professional work; the apparatus of a laboratory, as distinguished from its equipment, consists of all the mechanical requisites for carrying on operations or experiments. When used in reference to persons or employments not requiring mechanical devices, apparatus denotes all the external aids useful in prosecuting a particular kind of work; thus, the apparatus of a scholar in Old English includes the reference books (as texts, glossaries, and bibliographies) that he finds essential to or helpful in his investigations

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formal lectures, with an appalling apparatus of specimens, charts, and wall pictures— Grandgent

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Machinery covers all the devices, means, or agencies which permit a thing (as an organism, a government, an institution, or a law) to function or which enable it to accomplish its ends (as a movement, a political party, or propaganda)

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the physiological machinery of the body is so adjusted that great variations of atmospheric temperature can be supported without detriment— Heiser

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public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion— Macaulay

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if the peoples wanted war, no machinery could prevent them from having it— Inge

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Paraphernalia usually suggests a collection of the miscellaneous articles or belongings that constitute the usual accompaniments (often the necessary equipment) of a person or group of persons in a particular employment or activity

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the paraphernalia of a circus

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the paraphernalia of a tourist

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little piles of wheels, strips of unworked iron and steel, blocks of wood, the paraphernalia of the inventor's trade— Anderson

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The word may be slightly contemptuous and imply a trivial or worthless character to the items included

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clear a boy's room of all its paraphernalia

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Outfit is sometimes interchangeable with equipment, but it has a slightly less formal flavor and is preferred when the latter term might seem pretentious

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a camper's outfit

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a beginner's beekeeping outfit, consisting of a bee veil, a pair of bee gloves, and the makings of a first-rate beehive— New Yorker

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It often specifically suggests wearing apparel and other necessities for a journey, a school year, or a new employment

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a bride's outfit

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a college girl's outfit

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beside this neat, black figure the American business man's outfit is as garish as a clown's— Barbara Beecher

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Tackle is also less formal than apparatus, which otherwise it closely resembles

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fishing tackle

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the girl sprucely habited, with her pretty tackle on the shining blood [horse] was a glad sight— Miles Franklin

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Gear is variously used, sometimes approaching equipment

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you've got a good six hours to get your gear together— Conrad

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or sometimes apparatus

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sportsman's gear

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or again outfit, or wearing apparel

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servants . . . ready in waiting at Pathankote with a change of geai— Kipling

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It is also occasionally the most general of these terms and equivalent to one's belongings collectively

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they are all, as far as worldly gear is concerned, much poorer than I — Shaw

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Matériel is used in industry and in military affairs as a comprehensive and unambiguous term that covers everything but the personnel

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a heavy drain on both the manpower and matériel resources— N. Y. Times

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