factory

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A building or other place where manufacturing takes place.

   […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

2. 2
   noun

   A police station.

   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).

3. 3
   noun

   A device or process that produces or manufactures something.

   Radio became a star factory for journalists.

4. 4
   noun

   A factory farm.

   chicken factory; pig factory

5. 5
   noun

   In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.

   The task factory […] is the object that is responsible for creating instances of those tasks dynamically.

6. 6
   noun

   The original state of an electronic device, as it was when it came from the manufacturer.

   factory settings; factory defaults; a factory reset

7. 7
   noun

   A trading establishment, especially set up by merchants working in a foreign country.

   We had here his curate, Mr. Furley, who had been nine years chaplain to the English factory at St. Petersburg […] .

8. 8
   noun

   An invoice or inventory.

   A short factory of goods sent to Janggamay by Thomas Samuell as principal, Tho. Dryver, and another named Cheque as assistants, anno 1613 in Sciam, the which amounteth as in a long factory at large appeareth, in Sciam money unto T. 2,025 2 2½, collected into this brief as followeth: […]

Etymology

Probably from factor + y, although in noun sense 1 (“a place where manufacturing takes place”) apparently influenced strongly by association with Classical Latin fact-, the past participial stem of faciō (“to make”); compare manufactory and Latin factōrium (“an oil press”). In noun sense 8 (“a trading establishment”), originally after Portuguese feitoria. In noun sense 9 (“an invoice or inventory”), probably after obsolete Dutch facture (“bill”); see facture. Compare Dutch factorij, Middle French factorie, Spanish factoría.