meat packing

American  

noun

1. the business or industry of slaughtering cattle and other meat animals and processing the carcasses for sale, sometimes including the packaging of processed meat products.

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Other Word Forms

• meat packer
  noun

Etymology

Origin of meat packing

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

Example Sentences

Go all the way back to meat packing or swill milk at the turn of the 20th century; go to the fight against big tobacco.

From Salon • May 2, 2025

“These children should never have been employed in meat packing plants and this can only happen when employers do no take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place.”

From Washington Post • Feb. 17, 2023

"It is a tragedy, we are dealing with another death at a meat packing plant," Lincoln Cordeiro told Reuters.

From Reuters • Jun. 4, 2022

The history of meat packing plants shows a push and pull between laborers—including immigrants and the many black workers, often women, who work alongside them—and corporate interests.

From Slate • May 28, 2020

I hated meat packing, it smells like what it is, a bunch of frozen dead animal corpses.

From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez