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Factory, a word that has changed meaning

2021-08-20T10:38:33.800Z


What definition of "factory" is given in our first dictionaries? A meaning far removed from that of today ...


Factory

.

Properly and formerly, machine driven by


water.

We cannot say that Littré was wrong in


his analysis.

Since the 18th century, however, the factory has


no longer had anything to do with a simple water mill.

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However, to be more attentive, the metaphor of water is never far away when it comes to factories often born on the banks of a river, in connection with the sea, a vast export space.

This is evidenced by the “sprawling” universe described by Émile Verhaeren, with its abyss, Les Usines, the title of one of his poems, becoming “granite rectangles and brick monuments”.

Or the Goncourts describing their "walks on the Seine bounded by a paper factory", which reminds them of a talking mill, "they wrote pleasantly in their Journal in 1859.

Read alsoDo not write more "health pass" but ...

What is the origin of the word "factory"?

Here is an astonishing transformation, because, at the origin, the plant comes from the Latin officina which designates "the workshop, the factory" not necessarily linked to a river.

In the thirteenth century, however, the cuisine, uisine or occhevine

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Source: lefigaro

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