Noun

(factories)

(obsolete) A trading establishment, especially set up by merchants working in a foreign country.

The position or state of being a factor.

A building or other place where manufacturing takes place.

* , chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=[…] St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories , it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=7 citation , passage=The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.}}

A device which produces or manufactures something.

(programming) In a computer program or library, a function, method, etc. which creates an object.

* 2010 , Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi, William Bartholomew, Inside the Microsoft Build Engine

The task factory is the object that is responsible for creating instances of those tasks dynamically.

Noun

(s)

An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw

, title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, page=217, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants , the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual. Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction.}}

(botany) An organism of the kingdom Plantae''; now specifically, a living organism of the ''Embryophyta'' (land plants) or of the ''Chlorophyta'' (green algae), a eukaryote that includes double-membraned chloroplasts in its cells containing chlorophyll ''a'' and ''b , or any organism closely related to such an organism.

(ecology) Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.

Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.

A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.

An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.

Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).

A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.

(snooker) A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.

* 2008 , Phil Yates, The Times , April 28 2008:

O’Sullivan risked a plant that went badly astray, splitting the reds.

A large piece of machinery, such as the kind used in earthmoving or construction.

(obsolete) A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.

* Dryden

a plant of stubborn oak

(obsolete) The sole of the foot.

* Ben Jonson

* knotty legs and plants of clay

(dated, slang) A plan; a swindle; a trick.

* Charles Dickens

It wasn't a bad plant , that of mine, on Fikey.

An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.

(US, dialect) A young oyster suitable for transplanting.