different between factory vs corporation

English

Etymology

From factor +? -y. Compare Middle French factorie; Italian fattoria, Spanish factoría, Portuguese feitoria, Dutch factorij.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?fækt??i/, /?fækt?i/
• (UK)

Noun

factory (plural factories)

1. (chiefly Scotland, now rare) The position or state of being a factor. [from 16th c.]
2. (now 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 […] .

3. A building or other place where manufacturing takes place. [from 17th c.]

   Synonym: manufactory

4. (Britain, 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).

5. A device which produces or manufactures something.
6. A factory farm.

   chicken factory; pig factory

7. (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.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: faktori
• Welsh: ffatri

Translations

Further reading

• factory in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• factory in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Adjective

factory (not comparable)

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

English

Etymology

From Late Latin corporatio (“assumption of a body”), from Latin corporatus, past participle of corporare (“to form into a body”); see corporate.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -e???n
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k??p???e???n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k??p???e???n/

Noun

corporation (plural corporations)

1. A body corporate, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. The municipal governing body of a borough or city.
3. (historical) In Fascist Italy, a joint association of employers' and workers' representatives.
4. (slang, dated, humorous) A protruding belly (perhaps a play on the word corpulence).

   Synonym: paunch

   • 1918, Katherine Mansfield, ‘Prelude’, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, page 91:

     'You'd be surprised,' said Stanley, as though this were intensely interesting, 'at the number of chaps at the club who have got a corporation.'

   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York 2007, p. 316:

     He was a big chap with a corporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora's, and he had a thin black moustache.

   • 2001, Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys, London: Scribner, Part 2, Chapter 20, p. 620,^[2]

     The sergeant was a goner. There was only one way to save him, and he threw himself on top, hurling the man to the ground. He lay covering his corporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow.

Derived terms

• British Broadcasting Corporation
• corporation tax

Hyponyms

• (body corporate): public limited company (UK)

Related terms

• corporate
• incorporate

Translations

Further reading

• corporation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• corporation in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Pronunciation

Noun

corporation f (plural corporations)

1. corporation
2. guild