factory

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: fac=to=ry

CIDE DICTIONARY

factory, n. [Cf. F. factorerie.].

•  A house or place where factors, or commercial agents, reside, to transact business for their employers.  Burke.  [1913 Webster]
•  The body of factors in any place; as, a chaplain to a British factory.  W. Guthrie.  [1913 Webster]
•  A building, or collection of buildings, appropriated to the manufacture of goods; the place where workmen are employed in fabricating goods, wares, or utensils; a manufactory; as, a cotton factory.  [1913 Webster]

Factory leg (Med.), a variety of bandy leg, associated with partial dislocation of the tibia, produced in young children by working in factories.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

factory, n. (pl. -ies)
1 a building or buildings containing plant or equipment for manufacturing machinery or goods.
2 hist. a merchant company's foreign trading station.

Idiom

factory farm a farm employing factory farming. factory farming a system of rearing livestock using industrial or intensive methods. factory floor workers in industry as distinct from management. factory ship Brit. a fishing ship with facilities for immediate processing of the catch.

Etymology

Port. feitoria and LL factorium

THESAURUS

factory

armory, arsenal, assembly line, assembly plant, atomic energy plant, bindery, boatyard, boilery, bookbindery, brewery, brickyard, cannery, creamery, dairy, defense plant, distillery, dockyard, factory belt, factory district, feeder plant, flour mill, industrial park, industrial zone, main plant, manufactory, manufacturing plant, manufacturing quarter, mill, mint, munitions plant, oil refinery, packing house, plant, pottery, power plant, production line, push-button plant, refinery, sawmill, shipyard, subassembly plant, sugar refinery, tannery, winery, works, yard, yards

ROGET THESAURUS

factory

Workshop

N workshop, workhouse, workplace, shop, place of business, manufactory, mill, plant, works, factory, cabinet, studio, office, branch office bureau, atelier, hive, hive of industry, nursery, hothouse, hotbed, kitchen, mint, forge, loom, dock, dockyard, alveary, armory, laboratory, lab, research institute, refinery, cannery, power plant, beauty parlor, beehive, bindery, forcing pit, nailery, usine, slip, yard, wharf, foundry, foundery, furnace, vineyard, crucible, alembic, caldron, matrix, at work, at the office, at the shop, working.