industry

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɪn.də.stri/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English industrie (“skill”), borrowed from Old French industrie (“activity; aptitude, experience”),^[2][3][4] or directly from Latin industria (“diligence, activity, zeal”),^[3][5] the noun use of the feminine of industrius (“active, diligent”),^[3][4][6] from Old Latin indostruus (“diligent”),^[3][6][7] probably formed from indu (“in, within”) and the base of struere (“to build”).^[3][6][7] Etymonline traces struere to Proto-Indo-European *stere- (“to spread”).^[3][4] It is related to structure, construct and indigenous.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cleverness, skill, the application of skill: about 1477, in Caxton's translation of the History of Jason;^[2][8] the AHD dates the first record to 1475.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Diligence, close application to a task, is from 1531, in Elyot's Boke Named the Governour,^[2][8] although Word Origins gives “hard work” as the first sense.^[9] A particular trade or branch of manufacture is from the 1560s.^[3][9][8] Systematic work or habitual employment is from 1611.^[8] A house of industry, a workhouse, is from 1696.^[8] The AHD notes that during the Industrial Revolution, as more and more human effort went into producing goods for sale, the sense “trade” and the sense “systematic work” grew to take over the word.^[4] In archaeology, an industry is a set of prehistoric implements of the same age, from 1911,^[8] and, preceded by a name, scholarly work devoted to a subject, as in the Shakespeare industry, from 1965.^[8][4] Industrial is from the 16th century, with isolated examples before the 19th.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1477 – skill (Caxton).^[2]
• 1531 – diligence (Elyot).^[2][8]
• 1560s – a branch of trade or manufacture.^[3]
• 1611 – systematic work.^[8]
• 1696 – house of industry.^[8]
• 1911 – in archaeology.^[8]
• 1965 – the Shakespeare industry.^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The commercial production and sale of goods.
2. A particular branch of manufacture or trade: the steel industry.
3. The manufacturing sector of an economy.
4. Hard work; diligence.
5. Continuing work or study devoted to a subject or figure.

Word family

• industrywide
• interindustry
• nonindustry
• preindustry
• proindustry
• subindustry
• superindustry
• captain of industry

Related words

• industrial
• industrious
• structure
• construct
• instruct
• destroy

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press