different between factory vs foundry

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

Alternative forms

• foundery (dated)

Etymology

From French fonderie.

Pronunciation

• enPR: foun'dr?, IPA^(key): /fa?nd?i/
• Rhymes: -a?nd?i

Noun

foundry (countable and uncountable, plural foundries)

1. A facility that melts metals in special furnaces and pours the molten metal into molds to make products. Foundries are usually specified according to the type of metal dealt with: iron foundry, brass foundry, etc.
2. The act, process, or art of casting metals; founding.
3. A semiconductor fabrication plant in the microelectronics industry.

Synonyms

• (semiconductor fabrication plant): fab

Derived terms

• type foundry

Translations

Further reading

• foundry on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• foundry (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia