factory

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

English

Etymology

From Latin factorium (“place of doers, makers”). Equivalent to factor +‎ -y. Compare Middle French factorie; Italian fattoria, 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)

1. (chiefly Scotland, now rare) The position or state of being a factor. [from 16th c.]
2. (now 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 […] .

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

   Synonym: manufactory

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

   chicken factory; pig factory

7. (programming) In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: faktori
• Welsh: ffatri

Translations

Further reading

• “factory”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “factory”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

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.