ˈin(ˌ)dəstrē, -ri sometimes ə̇nˈd- noun
( -es )
Etymology: Middle English industrie, from Middle French, skill, employment involving skill, from Latin industria diligence, from industrius diligent, from Old Latin indostruus, from indu, endo in, within + -struus (akin to Latin struere to arrange, build) — more at indigenous , structure
1. obsolete
a. : skill , cleverness
b. : a use or application of skill or cleverness
2.
a. : diligence in an employment or pursuit : steady attention to business
all his long years of service gone … all his industry and diligence thrown away — James Joyce
sewing with no great amount of industry on pieces of white material — Lillian Hellman
b. : habitual or constant work or effort
a man of fine mental powers … unceasing industry , and simple charm — C.B.Fisher
he had immense industry but he didn't know how to think — Archibald Marshall
3.
a. : systematic labor especially for the creation of value
had left the country … to live by his own industry in England — Charles Dickens
b. : a department or branch of a craft, art, business, or manufacture : a division of productive or profit-making labor ; especially : one that employs a large personnel and capital especially in manufacturing
put his money into an industry that sold its goods on an international scale
all the large industries in the city
c. : a group of productive or profit-making enterprises or organizations that have a similar technological structure of production and that produce or supply technically substitutable goods, services, or sources of income
the automobile industry
the air transport industry
the poultry industry
the smuggling of gold, liquor, and other contraband has become a secondary industry — James Reach
the tourist industry
d. : manufacturing activity as a whole
conditions that were auspicious for the nation's industry
an energetic promoter of New England industry — Current Biography
4.
a. : a well-developed technique of a people especially as evidenced in archaeological discoveries
b. : an assemblage of prehistoric implements giving clear evidence that they were used by one group of men