- a building or group of buildings where goods are made, mainly by machine
- a car factory
- The factory closed down ten years ago.
- in/at a factory She works in the local textile factory.
- factory workers
Synonyms factoryfactoryplant ▪ mill ▪ works ▪ yard ▪ workshop ▪ foundryThese are all words for buildings or places where things are made or where industrial processes take place.factory a building or group of buildings where goods are made, mainly by machine:- a chocolate/cigarette/clothing factory
- a nuclear power plant
- a manufacturing plant
- a cotton/paper/textile/woollen mill
- a brickworks
- a steelworks
- Raw materials were carried to the works by barge.
- a shipyard
- a car repair workshop
- an iron foundry
- a car/chemical/munitions factory/plant
- an engineering plant/works
- to manage/run a factory/plant/mill/works/yard/workshop/foundry
- to work in/at a factory/plant/mill/yard/workshop/foundry
- factory/mill/foundry owners/managers/workers
Extra ExamplesTopics Buildingsa2, Businessa2- He works in a shoe factory.
- They had to close the factory down in the recession.
- capital to set up a ceramics factory
- a chocolate/clothing/soap factory
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- large
- small
- modern
- …
- build
- open
- set up
- …
- make something
- produce something
- open
- …
- manager
- owner
- worker
- …
- at factory
- in factory
Definitions on the go
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- a person or organization that continuously produces a large quantity of a particular thing
- This record label has become a real hit factory (= one that produces a lot of successful songs).
- (disapproving) These universities are becoming colourless degree factories, with no sense of what higher learning is really about.
Word Originlate 16th cent. (originally referring to a place where traders did business in a foreign country): via Portuguese feitoria. The current sense is based on late Latin factorium, literally ‘oil press’.
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factory