Le Musée Patamécanique translates from the French to "The Museum of Patamechanics". The term Patamechanics is chiefly derived from 'Pataphysics, a difficult-to-define word and field of creative practice invented by French writer, poet and playwright - Alfred Jarry (1873-1907).

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One definition of Pataphysics is that;"it is a branch of philosophy or science that examines imaginary phenomena that exist in a world beyond metaphysics.” Another attempt interprets Pataphysics as "the virtual or imaginary nature of things as glimpsed by the heightened vision of poetry or science or love that can be seized and lived as real". Yet another definition likens Pataphysics to “... a systematic toying with the arrangement of things and their significance until the improbable hypothesis can be seen as real.“ Alfred Jarry defined 'Pataphysics in a number of statements and examples, including that it is "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments".