noun, plural in·dus·tries for 1, 2, 7.
- the aggregate of manufacturing or technically productive enterprises in a particular field, often named after its principal product: the automobile industry; the steel industry.
- any general business activity; commercial enterprise: the Italian tourist industry.
- trade or manufacture in general: the rise of industry in Africa.
- the ownership and management of companies, factories, etc.: friction between labor and industry.
- systematic work or labor.
- energetic, devoted activity at any work or task; diligence: Her teacher praised her industry.
- the aggregate of work, scholarship, and ancillary activity in a particular field, often named after its principal subject: the Mozart industry.
- Archaeology. an assemblage of artifacts regarded as unmistakably the work of a single prehistoric group.
noun plural -tries
- organized economic activity concerned with manufacture, extraction and processing of raw materials, or construction
- a branch of commercial enterprise concerned with the output of a specified product or servicethe steel industry
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- industrial ownership and management interests collectively, as contrasted with labour interests
- manufacturing enterprise collectively, as opposed to agriculture
- diligence; assiduity
late 15c., “cleverness, skill,” from Old French industrie “activity; aptitude” (14c.) or directly from Latin industria “diligence, activity, zeal,” fem. of industrius “industrious, diligent,” used as a noun, from early Latin indostruus “diligent,” from indu “in, within” + stem of struere “to build” (see structure (n.)). Sense of “diligence, effort” is from 1530s; meaning “trade or manufacture” first recorded 1560s; that of “systematic work” is 1610s.