Definition of: industry

(in′dəs·trē) noun plural ·tries
1. Earnest or constant application to work or business.
2. Useful labor in general.
3. A special branch of productive work, or the capital or workers employed in it: the steel industry, the farming industry.
4. The mechanical and manufacturing branches of productive activity, as distinguished from agricultural.
5. Obs. Skill, dexterity; also, a clever device or contrivance. [<F industrie <L industria diligence <industrius diligent] Synonyms: application, assiduity, attention, constancy, diligence, effort, exertion, intentness, labor, pains, patience, perseverance, persistence, sedulousness. Industry is the quality, action, or habit of earnest, steady, and continued attention or devotion to any useful or productive work or task, manual or mental. Assiduity (L ad, to, and sedere, sit), as the etymology suggests, sits down to a task until it is done. Diligence (L diligere, love, choose) invests more effort and exertion, with love of the work or deep interest in its accomplishment; application (L ad, to, and plicare, fold) bends to its work and concentrates all one's powers upon it with utmost intensity; hence, application can hardly be as unremitting as assiduity. Constancy is a steady devotion of heart and principle. Patience works on in spite of annoyances; perseverance overcomes hindrances and difficulties; persistence strives relentlessly against opposition; persistence has very frequently an unfavorable meaning, implying that one persists in spite of considerations that should induce him to desist. Industry is diligence applied to some vocation, business, or profession; hence, by derived use, the occupation itself. Labor and pains refer to the exertions of the worker and the tax upon him, while assiduity, perseverance, etc., refer to his continuance in the work. See BUSINESS. Antonyms: idleness, inattention, inconstancy, indolence, neglect, negligence, remissness, sloth.