Industrialism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mode of economic development primarily defined by the transition from farming societies to those based on mass production in factories, utilizing machinery for efficiency
2. A socio-economic system characterized by the shift from agrarian economies to those focused on large-scale manufacturing and mechanized production processes
3. An economic and social order marked by the reliance on industrial production, where factories dominate over traditional agricultural methods and manual labor

Etymology: Industrialism is a plain compound: the adjective "industrial" with the suffix "-ism" attached. The "-ism" ending comes from Ancient Greek "-ismos", a suffix that turned verbs into nouns of action or state, and it passed into English through Latin and French. Its job in "industrialism" is to name a system or doctrine, so the word denotes an economic order built around factories rather than a single activity. "Industrial" itself was formed from the Latin "industria," meaning diligence or hard work, and the Greek ancestry behind "-ism" is what gives the whole word its classical texture. Because "-ism" was attached to an existing English adjective, the word could be coined whenever the factory economy needed a name, rather than inheriting a fixed medieval form.

Synonyms: capitalism, manufacturing, mass production, industrial economy

Antonyms: agrarianism, feudalism, handicraft, subsistence agriculture