different between factory vs faction

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fæk.??n/, /?fæk.?n?/
• Rhymes: -æk??n

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle French faction, from Latin facti? (“a group of people acting together, a political faction”), noun of process from perfect passive participle factus, from faci? (“do, make”). Doublet of fashion.

Noun

faction (countable and uncountable, plural factions)

1. (countable) A group of people, especially within a political organization, which expresses a shared belief or opinion different from people who are not part of the group.
2. (uncountable) Strife; discord.
   • 1805, Johann Georg Cleminius, Englisches Lesebuch für Kaufleute, pg. 188:

     Publick [sic] affairs soon fell into the utmost confusion, and in this state of faction and perplexity, the island continued, until its re-capture by the French in 1779.

   • 2001, Odd Magne Bakke, "Concord and Peace": A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement With an Emphasis on the Language of Unity and Sedition, publ. Mohr Siebeck, ?ISBN, pg. 89:

     He asks the audience if they believe that they will be more loved by the gods if the city is in a state of faction than if they govern the city with good order and concord.

Derived terms

• factional
• factionalize

Related terms

Translations

See also

• splinter group

Etymology 2

Blend of fact +? fiction.

Noun

faction (uncountable)

1. A form of literature, film etc., that treats real people or events as if they were fiction; a mix of fact and fiction

Derived terms

• science faction

Related terms

• fact
• fiction

See also

• Non-fiction novel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin facti?, facti?nem. Compare façon, which is inherited rather than borrowed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fak.sj??/

Noun

faction f (plural factions)

1. act of keeping watch
2. a watchman
3. (politics) a faction; specifically one which causes trouble

Further reading

• “faction” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).