cottage industry

noun

1. the production, for sale, of goods at home, as the making of handicrafts by rural families.

2. any small-scale, loosely organized industry.

cottage industry

noun

1. an industry in which employees work in their own homes, often using their own equipment

Word History and Origins

Origin of cottage industry¹

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

Second, tying liberty to wealth — and allowing other people to profit off the provision of liberty, thereby creating a cottage industry of freedom loans — is morally repugnant.

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The cash bail lobby loves to portray itself as sort of a cottage industry of mom ‘n’ pop operations devoted to serving the public weal, but that’s false.

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A decentralized, low-cost, flexible cottage industry will likely be transformed into a centralized, high-cost, inflexible cash cow for the merchants of death.

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A cottage industry of firms purporting to help consumers track down their forgotten subscriptions sprung up — typically operating on the same subscription model.

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Barely 5,000 artisans in Kolhapur are still in the profession – a cottage industry that struggles to compete in a mechanised world, caught in the funk of dismal working conditions and low wages.

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