industrialize

industrialize — verb

1. to build factories and develop large-scale manufacturing so that a country or re

1.verbtransitive / intransitiveB2
Definition

to build factories and develop large-scale manufacturing so that a country or region shifts from depending mainly on farming or small workshops to relying on modern industry

Example

Hyun's government promised to industrialize the rural south by building new factories there.

industrialize + noun phrase (rural area)

As Ishaan's country industrialized, many young people left farming for jobs in textile mills.

intransitive use: country + industrialized

Common collocations
  • industrialize rapidly
  • industrialize the economy
  • industrialize a region
  • become industrialized
  • heavily industrialized
Synonyms
  • mechanize

    narrower — means replacing human or animal labour with machines, without changing the whole economy

  • automate

    narrower — focuses on using computers or robots to run processes without human intervention

  • modernize

    broader — means updating anything to current standards, not just manufacturing

Antonyms
  • deindustrialize

    the opposite process — reducing or losing a region's manufacturing capacity

Grammar Patterns

industrialize + noun phrase (region / country / economy)

noun phrase + industrialize

be + industrialized

Usage Note

Can be used transitively (The government industrialized the region), intransitively (The region industrialized rapidly), or in the passive form (was industrialized). The passive is especially common in historical and economic writing describing periods of industrial development.

Common Mistakes

The company industrialized its office with new computers.
The company automated its office with new computers.
industrialize refers to transforming an entire economy or region toward manufacturing, not introducing technology to a single workplace.
The farmer industrialized his small vegetable garden.
The farmer mechanized his small vegetable garden.
industrialize implies large-scale economic change across a region, not simply using machines on a small plot.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All four words involve change through technology, but at different scales and with different focuses. Industrialize means transforming a whole economy from farming to manufacturing — building factories, setting up production lines, and creating an industrial workforce. Mechanize is narrower: replacing human or animal labour with machines in a specific setting, such as a farm or a workshop. Automate goes further, using computers or robots to run processes without human intervention. Modernize is the broadest term — updating equipment, systems, or methods to be current, regardless of the sector. For example, a country industrializes its economy by building steel mills and car plants; a factory automates its assembly line with robots; a wheat farm mechanizes its harvesting with tractors; a school modernizes its classrooms with interactive whiteboards.

industrialize ↗mechanizeautomate ↗modernize

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • process of industrializing
  • become industrialized
  • undergo industrialization

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Industrialize was formed in the mid-19th century from industrial (relating to manufacturing) and the suffix -ize (meaning 'to make or become'). The word industrial itself comes from the Latin industria, meaning 'diligence' or 'hard work'. The verb emerged during the period of rapid factory growth in Europe and North America, when writers needed a term for the shift from hand production to machine-based manufacturing.