industry

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The sector of an economy made up of manufacturing enterprises.
• noun A sector of an economy: synonym: business.
• noun Energetic devotion to a task or an endeavor; diligence.
• noun Ongoing work or study associated with a specified subject or figure.
• noun A collection of artifacts or tools made from a specified material.
• noun A standardized tradition of toolmaking associated with a specified tool or culture.
• noun Obsolete Cleverness or skill.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Habitual diligence in any employment or task, whether bodily or mental; sedulous attention to business; assiduity.
• noun Productive labor; specifically, labor employed in manufacturing; manufacture; hence, a particular branch of work; a trade: as, the iron industry; the cotton industry: often used, in the plural, of trades in general: as, the arts and industries of a country.
• noun Synonyms Application, Diligence, etc. (see assiduity); activity, laboriousness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun Habitual diligence in any employment or pursuit, either bodily or mental; steady attention to business; assiduity; -- opposed to sloth and idleness.
• noun Any department or branch of art, occupation, or business; especially, one which employs much labor and capital and is a distinct branch of trade
• noun (Polit. Econ.) Human exertion of any kind employed for the creation of value, and regarded by some as a species of capital or wealth; labor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun uncountable The tendency to work persistently.
• noun countable, business, economics Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole.
• noun uncountable, economics Businesses that produce goods as opposed to services.
• noun in singular, economics The sector of the economy consisting of large-scale enterprises.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun persevering determination to perform a task
• noun the organized action of making of goods and services for sale
• noun the people or companies engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise