Noun

(uncountable) The tendency to work persistently.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=November 12, work=BBC Sport

, title= International friendly: England 1-0 Spain , passage=England's win was built on industry and discipline, epitomised by the performances of Manchester City's Joleon Lescott in defence and Scott Parker in midfield.}}

(countable, business, economics) Businesses of the same type, considered as a whole.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=71, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= End of the peer show , passage=Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.}}

(uncountable, economics) Businesses that produce goods as opposed to services.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)

, title= Internal Combustion, chapter=2 , passage=But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries .  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.}}

(in the singular, economics) The sector of the economy consisting of large-scale enterprises.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Out of the gloom , passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}

Automated production of material goods{{cite web

, author=(European Parliament) , title= Europarl 2003-09-24: Amended Software Patent Directive , date=2003-09-24 }}.

*

Noun

(uncountable) Fine, dry particles of matter found in the air and covering the surface of objects, typically consisting of soil lifted up by the wind, pollen, hair, etc.

(countable) The act of cleaning by dusting.

* 2010 , Joan Busfield, Michael Paddon, Thinking About Children: Sociology and Fertility in Post-War England (page 150)

once they start school, I mean you can do a room out one day, the next day it only needs a dust , doesn't it?

(obsolete) A single particle of earth or other material.

* Shakespeare

to touch a dust of England's ground

The earth, as the resting place of the dead.

* Bible, Job vii. 21

I shall sleep in the dust .

The earthy remains of bodies once alive; the remains of the human body.

* Tennyson

And you may carve a shrine about my dust .

(figurative) Something worthless.

* Shakespeare

And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust .

(figurative) A low or mean condition.

* Bible, 1 Sam. ii. 8

[God] raiseth up the poor out of the dust .

(slang, dated) cash; money (in reference to gold dust).

(mathematics) A totally disconnected set of points with a fractal structure.