Word.ws English Dictionary

proto-industry

proto-industry noun: domestic manufacturing or commercial activity seen as being a precursor to industrialization.

Noun

proto-industry (countable and uncountable, plural proto-industries)

  1. Domestic manufacturing or commercial activity seen as being a precursor to industrialization.
    • Near-synonym: cottage industry
    • It is now generally recognised that the rise of cottage industry, or proto-industry as it is now more fashionably called, played an important role in the transformation of the West European economy during the modern era.1993, JL Van Zanden, The Rise and Decline of Holland's Economy, page 103

Synonyms of proto-industry

Forms of proto-industry

pluralproto-industries

Origin of proto-industry

From proto- + industry.

Questions about proto-industry

What does proto-industry mean?
Proto-industry means domestic manufacturing or commercial activity seen as being a precursor to industrialization.
What part of speech is proto-industry?
Proto-industry is a noun.
What is the plural of proto-industry?
The plural of proto-industry is proto-industries.

Words near proto-industry in the dictionary

  1. Proto-Indo-Hittite
  2. Proto-Indo-Iranian
  3. Proto-Indo-Iranians
  4. proto-industrialization
  5. proto-industries
  6. proto-industry
  7. Proto-Inuit
  8. Proto-Inupik
  9. Proto-Iranian
  10. Proto-Iranians
  11. proto-iron

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: proto-industry (page history and authors). 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.

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