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)
- (chiefly Scotland, now rare) The position or state of being a factor. [from 16th c.]
- (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 […] .
- 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 184:
- A building or other place where manufacturing takes place. [from 17th c.]
- Synonym: manufactory
- (UK, slang) A police station. [from 19th c.]
- A device or process that produces or manufactures something.
- A factory farm.
- chicken factory; pig factory
- (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)
- (colloquial, of a configuration, part, etc.) Having come from the factory in the state it is currently in; original, stock.