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The manu in manufacture comes from a Latin word for what?

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manufacture

American  

[man-yuh-fak-cher, man-uh-] / ˌmæn jəˈfæk tʃər, ˌmæn ə- /

noun

• manufactures
  plural

1. 

   the making of goods or wares by manual labor or by machinery, especially on a large scale.

   the manufacture of television sets.

2. the making or producing of anything; generation.

   the manufacture of body cells.

3. the thing or material manufactured; product.

   Plastic is an important manufacture.

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verb (used with object)

• manufactures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• manufactured,
  past participle,  past
• manufacturing
  present participle

1. to make or produce by hand or machinery, especially on a large scale.

   Synonyms:

   build

2. to work up (material) into form for use.

   to manufacture cotton.

3. to invent fictitiously; fabricate; concoct.

   to manufacture an account of the incident.

4. to produce in a mechanical way without inspiration or originality.

   to manufacture a daily quota of poetry.

manufacture British  

/ ˌmænjʊˈfæktʃə /

verb

1. to process or make (a product) from a raw material, esp as a large-scale operation using machinery

2. (tr) to invent or concoct

   to manufacture an excuse

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noun

1. the production of goods, esp by industrial processes

2. a manufactured product

3. the creation or production of anything

Synonym Usage

Manufacture, assemble, fabricate apply to processes in industry. Manufacture, originally to make by hand, now means to make by machine or by industrial process: to manufacture rubber tires. To assemble is to fit together the manufactured parts of something mechanical: to assemble an automobile. To fabricate is to construct or build by fitting standardized parts together: to fabricate houses. See also make ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• manufacturing
  noun
• nonmanufacture
  noun
• nonmanufacturing
  noun
• semimanufacturing
  noun
• premanufacture
  verb (used with object)
• manufacturable
  adjective
• manufactural
  adjective
• nonmanufactured
  adjective
• semimanufactured
  adjective
• unmanufacturable
  adjective
• unmanufactured
  adjective
• well-manufactured
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• manufactures
  plural

Participles

• manufacturing
  present
• manufactured
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• manufacture
  simple
• manufactures
  simple
• have manufactured
  perfect
• has manufactured
  perfect
• am manufacturing
  progressive
• are manufacturing
  progressive
• is manufacturing
  progressive
• have been manufacturing
  perfect progressive
• has been manufacturing
  perfect progressive

Past

• manufactured
  simple
• had manufactured
  perfect
• was manufacturing
  progressive
• were manufacturing
  progressive
• had been manufacturing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will manufacture
  simple
• will have manufactured
  perfect
• will be manufacturing
  progressive
• will have been manufacturing
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of manufacture

First recorded in 1560–70; from Middle French manufacture “the action or process of making; a factory,” equivalent to Latin manū “by hand”, ablative singular of manus “hand” + Middle French facture “making, construction” (from Late Latin factūra “action of creating, a creation, piece of handiwork,” from Latin factūra “act of fashioning; metal working,” a derivative of facere “to make, do”); the verb is derivative of the noun

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Explanation

To manufacture something, is to make or construct it, usually for industry and sale. Unless you make all your own clothes, a company probably had to manufacture them. Manufacture is generally associated with industry and factories. Henry Ford, for instance, revolutionized industry by using assembly lines to manufacture Model Ts. But manufacture can also be used for the natural word, like bees that manufacture honey. Occasionally it use used more generally to mean to construct by putting parts together. And in a pinch, you can manufacture — or make — the truth, which is a creative way to say “lie.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

manufacture manufactures manufactured manufacturing

Much of the turmoil is due to an industry-wide struggle to manufacture and monetize heavier electric vehicles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026

“When China figures out how to manufacture a product, their ability to scale is often greater than the rest of the world combined,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Monday.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026

These treatments use short, specially designed pieces of genetic material to interfere with instructions that cells use to manufacture particular proteins.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

But performance has, and its market-leading chips wouldn’t have been possible to manufacture without advanced packaging.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

Gemmules secreted by the hand carried the instructions to manufacture a new hand; gemmules dispersed by the ear transmitted the code to build a new ear.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The company manufactures semiconductors for external customers and its new processing node has been a big success.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026

Airbus designs and manufactures wings for all its commercial aircraft at its Broughton site in North Wales.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

Martin Blunt, a small company that manufactures strings for muscial instruments in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires, has had to shift to a four-day week in the face of falling demand.

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

What got far less attention was the story about the owner of an Ohio factory that manufactures parts for cars and trucks, who told the New York Times about his Haitian workers.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2026

Both of those take place inside the Tyrell Building, an enormous double pyramid structure that houses the Tyrell Corporation, the company that manufactures the replicants.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

That finding raises the possibility of developing off-the-shelf treatments using cells manufactured in advance from donors.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

The Bluebottle drone, manufactured in Sydney, is named after a small jellyfish with a painful sting that washes ashore on Australian beaches.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

Fans have been warned against buying fakes, with police saying, external they can be "manufactured without regard for safety standards or workers' rights" and Trading Standards warning that "counterfeiters have no morals and no standards".

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

Marine vessels such as ferries and cargo ships aren’t mass manufactured like cars.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

For them, as we saw in Chapter 9, the argument from design depended on envisaging the universe as manufactured, rather than on showing nature itself to be purposive.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Tesla also started using a manufacturing plant in California to produce humanoid robots, known as Optimus.

From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2026

Our video explores what’s standing in the way of large-scale humanoid-robot manufacturing in the U.S.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026

Last month, JPMorgan announced a partnership with the state of Michigan and Ford Motor to deploy more than $2 billion to help subsidize new manufacturing companies that can plug gaps in supply chains.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

Machinery, footwear and apparel were manufacturing hub Vietnam's major exports to the EFTA.

From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2026

The main newscaster is reading a piece about a shortage of graphite affecting the manufacturing of items in District 3.

From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

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Related Words

• assemble
• complete
• construct
• create
• fabricate
• mass-produce
• synthesize

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