INDUSTRY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Industry

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/ˈɪndəstri/ Listen

noun

Industry n. (pl. industries)

Habitual diligence in any employment or pursuit, either bodily or mental; steady attention to business; assiduity; opposed to sloth and idleness; as, industry pays debts, while idleness or despair will increase them. "We are more industrious than our forefathers, because in the present times the funds destined for the maintenance of industry are much greater in proportion to those which are likely to be employed in the maintenance of idleness, than they were two or three centuries ago."

Any department or branch of art, occupation, or business; especially, one which employs much labor and capital and is a distinct branch of trade; as, the sugar industry; the iron industry; the cotton industry.

(Polit. Econ.) Human exertion of any kind employed for the creation of value, and regarded by some as a species of capital or wealth; labor.

Synonyms: Diligence; assiduity; perseverance; activity; laboriousness; attention. See Diligence.

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Etymology of 'Industry'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Industry" Quotes from Famous Books

... this community allow their exile to be much more dull and dreary than it need be, by neglecting to cultivate their gardens, and leaving them entirely to the taste and industry of the malee. I never feel half so much inclined to envy the great men of this now crowded city the possession of vast but gardenless mansions, (partly blocked up by those of their neighbours,) as I do to felicitate the owner ...

— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... so many things that seemed to stand in a class by themselves have been finally brought under some more comprehensive generalisation, and so become part of the 'cosmic machine,' that one is impelled to believe that given time and industry the same will result here. And it should never be forgotten that one aspect of scientific progress has been the taking over of large tracts of territory that religion once regarded as peculiarly its own; and just as psychology and pathology were found to hold the key to an understanding of such ...

— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... approached, they turned the heads of their horses towards home; and on entering the park, removed from the scene of industry and activity without, the earl relapsed into his fit of musing. A short distance from the house he suddenly called, "Harmer." The man drove his spurs into the loins of his horse, and in an instant was by the side of his master, which he signified by raising his hand ...

— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... but for the existence of the town itself. It was seen to lie in a broad valley, along which a river flowed; the remoter districts were pleasantly wooded, and only the murkiness in the far sky told that a yet larger centre of industry lurked beyond the horizon. Dunfield offered no prominent features save the chimneys of its factories and its fine church, the spire of which rose high above surrounding buildings; over all hung a canopy of foul vapour, heavy, pestiferous. Take in your fingers a spray from one of ...

— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... been urged as an objection to this measure that while purporting to be legislation for revenue its real purpose is to destroy, by the use of the taxing power, one industry of our people for the protection and benefit ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

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