Etimology
From Middle English industry, industrie, from Old French industrie, from Latin industria (“diligence, activity, industry”), from industrius (“diligent, active, zealous”), from Old Latin indostruus (“diligent, active”); origin unknown. Perhaps from indu (“in”) + ūst-, ūstr-, stem of ūrō (“burn, burn up, consume”, verb), related to Old High German ūstrī (“industry”), Old English andūstrian (“to hate, detest”, literally “to be consumed with zeal”).
noun
industry (countable and uncountable, plural industries)
(uncountable) The tendency to work persistently. Diligence.
(countable, business, economics) Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole. Trade.
(uncountable, economics) Businesses that produce goods as opposed to services.
(in the singular, economics) The sector of the economy consisting of large-scale enterprises.
(Europe software patent law) Automated production of material goods.
(archaeology) A typological classification of stone tools, associated with a technocomplex.
Examples
Over the years, their industry and business sense made them wealthy.
The ant has made himself illustrious / Through constant industry industrious. / So what? / Would you be calm and placid / If you were full of formic acid?
England's win was built on industry and discipline, epitomised by the performances of Manchester City's Joleon Lescott in defence and Scott Parker in midfield.
The software and tourism industries continue to grow, while the steel industry remains troubled.
The steel industry has long used blast furnaces to smelt iron.
Long before popular music evolved its many genres and subgenres, the industry was driven by a simple one-size-fits-all philosophy uncomplicated by impassioned debates over the origins of trip hop or the difference between deatchore and screamo.
Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.
But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.
There used to be a lot of industry around here, but now the economy depends on tourism.
[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.
It is a classical and restricted view both of industry […]
Related words
synonyms
(tendency to work persistently): diligence, industriousness; application
(businesses of the same type): sector; field
(businesses that produce goods): manufacturing
related terms
industrial
industrious