Drive technology

The first entry is la chaîne cinématique, and the adjective in it has a twin that nobody ever sets beside it. Both go back to kínēma, the Greek noun for a movement, built on kineîn, to move. English received that root twice and wrote it two ways. Through the schools and the laboratory it came with its Greek k, which is why « kinematics », « kinetic energy » and « kinesiology » all begin alike. Through French it came with a c, because French had assembled le cinématographe out of that same kínēma and the word for writing, and the shortened form crossed the Channel with the machine. So the picture house and the gearbox arithmetic on this page are, at the root, one word, and both are about movement passed on. Two things follow for a reader. Cinématique in French carries no suggestion whatever of film, so the phrase never needs a second glance. And la chaîne cinématique is not a kinematic chain in the abstract sense of a mechanics textbook. It is the ordinary drivetrain, the run of parts from motor to wheel, and « drivetrain » or « driveline » is what a workshop says.