Word.ws English Dictionary

shadow factory

shadow factory noun: an aircraft factory in the World War II era, partly staffed by people from the motor industry, that was kept hidden from enemy aircraft.

Noun

shadow factory (plural shadow factories)

  1. (UK, historical) An aircraft factory in the World War II era, partly staffed by people from the motor industry, that was kept hidden from enemy aircraft.
    • [...] but common prudence demanded, even before the outbreak of war, that details should not be disclosed which might reveal to a potential enemy the positions of "shadow factories" and air bases, and the location of stores of munitions, petrol, food, and so forth.1939 November, Charles E. Lee, “Railways and the War — I”, in Railway Magazine, page 313

Forms of shadow factory

pluralshadow factories

Questions about shadow factory

What does shadow factory mean?
Shadow factory means an aircraft factory in the World War II era, partly staffed by people from the motor industry, that was kept hidden from enemy aircraft.
What part of speech is shadow factory?
Shadow factory is a noun.
What is the plural of shadow factory?
The plural of shadow factory is shadow factories.

Words near shadow factory in the dictionary

  1. shadow drop
  2. shadow dropped
  3. shadow dropping
  4. shadow drops
  5. shadow factories
  6. shadow factory
  7. shadow fleet
  8. shadow fleets
  9. shadow gazer
  10. shadow gazers
  11. shadow government

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shadow factory (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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