factory
/ˈfæk.tə.ɹi/US/ˈfæk.tɚ.i/
factory noun: a building or other place where manufacturing takes place.
Noun
factory (plural factories)
- A building or other place where manufacturing takes place.
- […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- manufactory
- A police station.
- The guys all knew each other and we were having a jolly old chinwag as we marched them out of the house in front of their stunned neighbours and into a van we had called to take them all to the Factory (police station).2010, Harry Keeble, Kris Hollington, Crack House
- A device or process that produces or manufactures something.
- Radio became a star factory for journalists.2009, Sam Riley, Star Struck: An Encyclopedia of Celebrity Culture, page 200
- A factory farm.
- chicken factory; pig factory
- In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.
- The task factory […] is the object that is responsible for creating instances of those tasks dynamically.2010, Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi, William Bartholomew, Inside the Microsoft Build Engine
- The original state of an electronic device, as it was when it came from the manufacturer.
- factory settings; factory defaults; a factory reset
- The position or state of being a factor.
- A trading establishment, especially set up by merchants working in a foreign country.
- 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
- An invoice or inventory.
- A short factory of goods sent to Janggamay by Thomas Samuell as principal, Tho. Dryver, and another named Cheque as assistants, anno 1613 in Sciam, the which amounteth as in a long factory at large appeareth, in Sciam money unto T. 2,025 2 2½, collected into this brief as followeth: […]1615 September 6 (Gregorian calendar), Lucas Antheuniss, “Lucas Antheuniss to Thomas Samuel”, in William Foster, editor, Letters Received by the East India Company from Its Servants in the East […]...
- What Sterl. is Mr. Lawſon to charge himſelf with, on Account of this Factory, […]1720, M[artin] Clare, “Invoyce from France”, in Youth’s Introduction to Trade and Business: […], London: […] J. Dawks, for Edward Symon, […], →OCLC, page 81
Adjective
factory (not comparable)
factory meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
factory in Hindi
- manufacturing place
- कार्यशाला kāryaśālā, शिल्पशाला śilpaśālā, कारख़ाना kārxānā
factory in Tamil
- manufacturing place
- ஆலை ālai
factory in Marathi
- manufacturing place
- कारखाना kārkhānā, फॅक्टरी phĕkṭarī
factory in Urdu
- manufacturing place
- کارْخانَہ kārxāna, فَیکْٹَری faikṭarī
More languagesFewer languages
- factory in Bengali
- কারখানা karkhana, ফ্যাক্টরী phêkṭori
- factory in Telugu
- కర్మాగారం karmāgāraṁ
- factory in Malayalam
- ഫാക്ടറി
- factory in Kannada
- ಯಂತ್ರಾಗಾರ, ಕಾರ್ಖಾನೆ, ಜಂತ್ರಕಟ್ಟೆ, ಯಂತ್ರಕಟ್ಟೆ
- factory in Punjabi
- ਕਾਰਖ਼ਾਨਾ kārxānā, ਪਲਾਂਟ palāṇṭ
- factory in Gujarati
- કારખાનું kārkhānũ
- factory in Odia
- କାରଖାନା, ଫ୍ଯ଼ାକ୍ଟ୍ରି
- factory in Sinhala
- පැක්ටරි pækṭari
- factory in Assamese
- কাৰখানা karkhana
- factory in Nepali
- कारखाना, फ्याक्ट्री
- factory in Pashto
- کارخانه kārxāna, فابريکه fābrika, منډاو manḍāw, کارګاه kārgāh
- factory in Tagalog
- pabrika, pagawaan
- factory in Arabic
- مَصْنَع maṣnaʕ, مَعْمَل maʕmal
- factory in Malay
- kilang, pabrik
- factory in Indonesian
- pabrik, kilang
- factory in Thai
- โรงงาน roong-ngaan
- factory in Vietnamese
- nhà máy
- factory in Myanmar
- စက်ရုံ cak-rum, အလုပ်ရုံ a.lup-rum
Examples of factory in a sentence
- They were discounted because they contained blemishes, nicks or were otherwise factory seconds.
- A large portion of domestic meat production comes from animals raised on factory farms.
- The salt factory is a key connecting element in the seawater infrastructure.
Synonyms of factory
Forms of factory
| plural | factories |
|---|
Origin of factory
Probably from factor + -y, although in noun sense 1 (“a place where manufacturing takes place”) apparently influenced strongly by association with Classical Latin fact-, the past participial stem of faciō (“to make”); compare manufactory and Latin factōrium (“an oil press”). In noun sense 8 (“a trading establishment”), originally after Portuguese feitoria. In noun sense 9 (“an invoice or inventory”), probably after obsolete Dutch facture (“bill”); see facture. Compare Dutch factorij, Middle French factorie, Spanish factoría.
Words formed from factory
- abstract factory class
- abstract factory pattern
- antifactory
- arms factory
- autofactory
- baby factory
- beauty factory
- B-factory
- biofactory
- bum factory
- cat factory
- dark factory
- daylight factory
- did the journal factory explode
- don't fuck in the factory
- dream factory
- dropout factory
- email factory
- factoried
- factory-backed
- factory class
- factory edge
- factory farming
- factory head
- factory leg
- factorylike
- factory mark
- factory method pattern
- factory pattern
- factory reset
- factoryscape
- factory second
- factory setting
- factory ship
- factory team
- factorywise
- factoryworker
- Fty.
- gargle-factory
- get to the fireworks factory
- gigafactory
- glue factory
- Higgs factory
- interfactory
- intrafactory
- kitten factory
- like an explosion in a paint factory
- megafactory
- milk factory
- Moose Factory
- nanofactory
- nonfactory
- poop factory
- postfactory
- prefactory
- sausage factory
- send to the glue factory
- shadow factory
- shit factory
- star factory
Phrases with factory
- factory farm
- York Factory
- factory edges
- factory farms
- factory heads
- factory ships
- factory teams
- think factory
- troll factory
- factory resets
- factory classes
- factory seconds
15 more phrasesFewer phrases
- factory patterns
- factory settings
- Chocolate Factory
- factory resetting
- factory method patterns
- abstract factory classes
- sent to the glue factory
- abstract factory patterns
- sends to the glue factory
- sending to the glue factory
- got to the fireworks factory
- gets to the fireworks factory
- Turán's brick factory problem
- gotten to the fireworks factory
- getting to the fireworks factory
Words that rhyme with factory
Questions about factory
- What does factory mean?
- Factory means a building or other place where manufacturing takes place.
- What is factory in Hindi?
- Factory in Hindi is कार्यशाला (kāryaśālā), शिल्पशाला (śilpaśālā), कारख़ाना (kārxānā). See Factory meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is factory?
- Factory can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce factory?
- Factory is pronounced /ˈfæk.tə.ɹi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of factory?
- The plural of factory is factories.
Words near factory in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: factory (page history and authors); factory (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); factory (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); factory (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); factory (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-factory.ogg.
Cite this entry: “factory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/factory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.