manufacture

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˌmæn.jəˈfæk.tʃə/, US /ˌmæn.jəˈfæk.tʃɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French manufacture (1511),^[2][3][4] from Medieval Latin *manūfactūra, a making by hand,^[3] from Latin manū, by hand (see manual), and factūra, a making, from facere, to make (see fact).^[2][3][4] Italian manifattura and Spanish manufactura may have been the model, but the French word is generally taken as an independent formation, refashioned after Latin manū factum, made by hand.^[2][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Something made by hand: 1567,^[2] the 1560s in Etymonline.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Making by hand is from 1605,^[6] and the act or process of manufacturing goods is first recorded in 1622, in Bacon's Henry VII,^[2][6] later especially on a large scale with machinery.^[6][7] A branch of industry is from 1683.^[6] The verb is from 1683, in Thomas Tryon,^[2] first converting material into a usable form,^[3] then to make in quantity by hand or machinery by 1755,^[3] and figuratively to invent or fabricate (to manufacture an excuse) from 1762.^[3][8] Manufactory is a 17th-century word.^[4]

Timeline

• 1567 – a thing made by hand.^[2]
• 1605 – making by hand.^[6]
• 1622 – the process of manufacturing.^[2][6]
• 1683 – to manufacture (verb).^[2]
• 1762 – to fabricate (figurative).^[3]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To make goods from raw materials, especially in large quantities using machinery.
2. To invent or make up: to manufacture an excuse.

Noun

1. The making of goods, especially by industrial processes.
2. A manufactured product.

Word family

• manufacturable
• manufactural
• manufacturing
• manufacturability
• nonmanufacture
• premanufacture
• remanufacture

Related words

• manufactory
• manufacturer
• manual
• fact
• factory
• manuscript
• manicure

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 f g h i 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 Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins