factory

Probably from factor +‎ -y, although in noun sense 1 (“a place where manufacturing takes place”) apparently influenced strongly by association with Classical Latin fact-, the past participial stem of faciō (“to make”); compare manufactory and Latin factōrium (“an oil press”). In noun sense 8 (“a trading establishment”), originally after Portuguese feitoria. In noun sense 9 (“an invoice or inventory”), probably after obsolete Dutch facture (“bill”); see facture.^[1] Compare Dutch factorij, Middle French factorie, Spanish factoría.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfæk.tə.ɹi/, /ˈfæk.tɹi/

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfæk.tɚ.i/, /ˈfæk.tɹi/
• Rhymes: -æktəɹi, -æktɹi

factory (plural factories)

2. A building or other place where manufacturing takes place. [from 17th c.]
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.

   Synonym: manufactory

   History has shown that, even without cheap labor, factories run perfectly well.

3. (UK, slang) A police station. [from 19th c.]
   • 2010, Harry Keeble, Kris Hollington, Crack House:

     The guys all knew each other and we were having a jolly old chinwag as we marched them out of the house in front of their stunned neighbours and into a van we had called to take them all to the Factory (police station).

4. A device or process that produces or manufactures something.
   • 2009, Sam Riley, Star Struck: An Encyclopedia of Celebrity Culture, page 200:

     Radio became a star factory for journalists.

5. A factory farm.

   chicken factory; pig factory

6. (programming) In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.
   • 2010, Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi, William Bartholomew, Inside the Microsoft Build Engine:

     The task factory […] is the object that is responsible for creating instances of those tasks dynamically.

7. (attributive) The original state of an electronic device, as it was when it came from the manufacturer.

   factory settings; factory defaults; a factory reset

8. (chiefly Scotland, now rare) The position or state of being a factor. [from 16th c.]
10. (historical) A trading establishment, especially set up by merchants working in a foreign country. [from 16th c.]
    • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 184:

      We had here his curate, Mr. Furley, who had been nine years chaplain to the English factory at St. Petersburg […] .

12. (obsolete) An invoice or inventory.
    • 1615 September 6 (Gregorian calendar), Lucas Antheuniss, “Lucas Antheuniss to Thomas Samuel”, in William Foster, editor, Letters Received by the East India Company from Its Servants in the East […], volume III, London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company […], published 1899, →OCLC, pages 155–156:

      A short factory of goods sent to Janggamay by Thomas Samuell as principal, Tho. Dryver, and another named Cheque as assistants, anno 1613 in Sciam, the which amounteth as in a long factory at large appeareth, in Sciam money unto T. 2,025 2 2½, collected into this brief as followeth: […]

    • 1720, M[artin] Clare, “Invoyce from France”, in Youth’s Introduction to Trade and Business: […], London: […] J. Dawks, for Edward Symon, […], →OCLC, page 81:

      What Sterl. is Mr. Lawſon to charge himſelf with, on Account of this Factory, […]

    • 1766, Anthony Birks, John Birks, “Addition of English Coins”, in Arithmetical Collections and Improvements. Being a Complete System of Practical Arithmetic., London: […] [T]he Authors; […] Mess. Hawes, Collins and Clarke, […] and Mess. Hollingworth, […], →OCLC, book I (The Elementary Part of Arithmetic), chapter I (The General Rules), page 11:

      A of Amſterdam is debtor to B of Briſtol, for mercery wares as per factory, 418 l. 2 s. 6 d.; […]

• (trading establishment): fondaco; see also trading post, colony

• Tok Pisin: faktori
• Welsh: ffatri

factory (not comparable)

1. (colloquial, of a configuration, part, etc.) Having come from the factory in the state it is currently in; original, stock.

   See how there's another layer of metal there? That's not factory.

• “factory”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “factory”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.