industrial

comparative more industrial · superlative most industrial

1. Of or relating to industry, notably manufacturing.

   The industrial segment of the economy has seen troubles lately.

   2 more examples

   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.

   2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2023, page 29

   The sight of a teenager walking the small town's streets would usually go unnoticed, but to Benicia Police Cpl. Kirk Keffer, things didn't look right on the quiet street in the industrial part of town.

   2016 November 18, Dan Simon, “Officers buy bike for teen who walked hours to work”, in CNN, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2016

2. Produced by such industry.

   Handicraft is less standardized then industrial products, hence less artistic or rather flawless.

3. Used by such industry.

   More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion

4. Suitable for use in such industry; industrial-grade.

   This is an industrial product—it's much too strong for home use.

5. Massive in scale or quantity.
6. Employed as manpower by such industry.

   Come, all ye workers, from every land, / Come, join in the grand industrial band; / Then we our share of this earth shall demand.

   1913, “There Is Power in a Union”, in Little Red Songbook, performed by Joe Hill

7. Having many industries; industrialized.

   Italy is a part-industrial, part-rural nation.

   1 more example

   Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.

   2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2023

8. entertainmentBelonging or pertaining to the genre of industrial music.

   a track with clashing industrial beats

plural industrials

1. countabledatedobsoleteuncountableAn employee in industry.
2. countableuncountablebusinessAn enterprise producing tangible goods or providing certain services to industrial companies.
3. countableuncountablebusinessA bond or stock issued by such a company.

   A very short time later a terrible line in a financial daily—"Consols weak"—caught his agitated eye. Consols were precipitately abandoned and a "sound industrial" took their place.

   1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

4. countableuncountablebroadcastingA film made for use within an industry, not for a movie-going audience.

   Actor, director, and producer for three decades offers coaching and directing in scenes, improves, cold copy, script analysis, commercials, voice-overs, industrials, film, and stage.

   2012, Stuart J. Scesney, How to Enter the Business of Commercial Modeling and Acting Without Getting Ripped Off

5. abbreviationellipsisinformaluncountableEllipsis of industrial music.

   I wish they'd play more industrial in this club.

6. abbreviationcountableellipsisinformaluncountableEllipsis of industrial piercing.

1. An unincorporated community in Doddridge County, West Virginia, United States.
2. A township in Saginaw, Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States.