factory

English Online Dictionary. What means factory‎? What does factory mean?

English

Etymology

From factor +‎ y. Compare Middle French factorie; Spanish factoría, Portuguese feitoria, Dutch factorij.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfæk.tə.ɹi/, /ˈfæk.tɹi/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfæk.tɚ.i/, /ˈfæk.tɹi/
• Rhymes: -æktəɹi, -æktɹi

Noun

factory (plural factories)

2. A building or other place where manufacturing takes place. [from 17th c.]

   Synonym: manufactory

3. (UK, slang) A police station. [from 19th c.]
4. A device or process that produces or manufactures something.
5. A factory farm.

   chicken factory; pig factory

6. (programming) In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.
7. (attributive) The original state of an electronic device, as it was when it came from the manufacturer.

8. (chiefly Scotland, now rare) The position or state of being a factor. [from 16th c.]
9. (historical) A trading establishment, especially set up by merchants working in a foreign country. [from 16th c.]
   • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 184:

     We had here his curate, Mr. Furley, who had been nine years chaplain to the English factory at St. Petersburg […] .

Hyponyms

• (trading establishment): fondaco; see also trading post, colony

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: faktori
• Welsh: ffatri

Translations

Adjective

factory (not comparable)

1. (colloquial, of a configuration, part, etc.) Having come from the factory in the state it is currently in; original, stock.

References

Further reading

• “factory”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “factory”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.