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industry

noun

Simple meaning

The organized action of making of goods and services for sale.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

induhstree

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɪndəstɹi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. countablebusinesseconomics

    Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole. Trade.

  2. uncountableeconomics

    Businesses that produce goods as opposed to services.

  3. The organized action of making of goods and services for sale

    “American industry is making increased use of computers to control production.”

  4. in the singulareconomics

    The sector of the economy consisting of large-scale enterprises.

  5. uncountable

    The tendency to work persistently.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole. Trade.

Used this way, industry is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional and finance or economics contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Business/professional
  • Finance/economics

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use industry

  • “American industry is making increased use of computers to control production.”noun
  • “Each industry has its own trade publications.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

steel industrychemical industryoil industryheavy industryconstruction industryfilm industryautomobile industrytextile industry

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • industrialadjectiveDerived adjective

    Related to Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole. Trade.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • industrializationnounRelated term

    The development of industry on an extensive scale.

  • industrial psychologynounRelated term

    Any of several branches of psychology that seek to apply psychological principles to practical problems of education or industry or marketing etc.

  • industrial unionnounRelated term

    A labor union that admits all workers in a given industry irrespective of their craft.

  • industrial enterprisenounRelated term

    The development of industry on an extensive scale.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.