deindustrialize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cause to lose industrial capability or strength; make less industrial in character or emphasis.
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to deprive (a conquered nation) of the means or potential for industrial growth.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to reduce the importance of manufacturing industry in the economy of (a nation or area)
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(intr) (of a nation or area) to undergo reduction in the importance of manufacturing industry in the economy
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of deindustrialize
First recorded in 1880–85; de- + industrialize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Morgenthau’s plan to demilitarize and deindustrialize Germany was seized upon by the failing Nazi regime as a propaganda tool, and the Truman administration ultimately rejected it.
From Salon ● Mar. 25, 2026
I watched the shoreline deindustrialize from waterfront developments to pristine forests.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 3, 2019
But I read the book as promoting a very pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality as the solution for young people living in deindustrialized areas.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2024
Voters in these deindustrialized areas were drawn by Mr. Johnson’s upbeat message and promise to “Get Brexit done” in 2019, and Labour is fighting to regain them, which would be a steppingstone to reclaiming power.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2023
In a deindustrialized nation where an Amazon warehouse was a big economic-development win, the idea of gaining 25,000 or more high-paid jobs was a dream come true.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 6, 2023
It’s a deindustrialized society, we don’t make a lot of things here.
From The Verge ● Mar. 23, 2021
There are a lot of similarities between the deindustrialized towns and cities of the Rust Belt and some of these rural areas.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2020
Knowledge work has been deindustrializing itself from its geographic constraints and offshored to the internet, where the labor is cheaper and often free.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
By century’s end, the artists themselves got priced out of their SoHo lofts — and museums themselves began to move into the old warehouses, factories and electric plants of deindustrializing cities.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2020
The black middle class had departed the inner city, and a deindustrializing economy left the remaining poor with few prospects.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2016
The route took as us through the rapidly deindustrializing Arts District, then back to Boyle Heights over the 7th Street Bridge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2016
This is not just a moral imperative; it is also a better solution to the admittedly severe problems facing declining, deindustrializing American cities.
From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2016
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
