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cottage industry

See more synonyms for cottage industry on Thesaurus.com
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.
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Origin of cottage industry

First recorded in 1920–25
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for cottage industry

Historical Examples

  • And individuals can make their own solar cookers easily, or start a cottage-industry to manufacture them for others.

    The BYU Solar Cooker/Cooler

    Steven E. Jones

British Dictionary definitions for cottage industry

cottage industry

noun
  1. an industry in which employees work in their own homes, often using their own equipment
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012