A Factory Was Once a Trading Post
A factory is a building where goods are made. The word first meant an overseas trading station run by agents called factors.
A factory is a building where things are manufactured at scale. The word did not start there. In the sixteenth century a factory was a trading post abroad, run by a *factor*, an agent who bought and sold for someone else. The manufacturing sense only took over with the industrial revolution.
- A building where goods are made. *A shoe factory.*
- Something producing at scale (figurative). *A hit factory.*
- Factory settings — the state a device left the maker in. *Restore factory settings.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | factory | A large factory. |
| Plural | factories | Closed factories. |
| Adjective | factory | Factory work. |
| Related | manufacture | Manufactured here. |
| Related | plant | A car plant. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The factory employs four hundred people.The ordinary sense.
- It comes with factory settings you can restore.A fixed compound in technology.
- Factory farming is heavily regulated here.The compound carries criticism.
Factory, plant, mill and works
- Factory — the general word
- Plant — usually large and industrial (a chemical plant)
- Mill — for grinding, or for textiles, steel and paper
- Works — a British term, often in names (the gasworks)
- Assembly line — the method that made big factories possible
From Medieval Latin *factoria*, the office of a factor, from *facere*, to make or do. The same *facere* is inside *factor*, *fact*, *manufacture* and *benefactor*.
Factory or plant?
They overlap. Plant suggests heavy industry and continuous processes; factory suggests discrete products being assembled.
What is a factory reset?
Returning a device to the software state it had when it left the maker, which erases whatever you added.