Meaning & use
factory worker
Last updated
UK/ˈfæktəri ˌwɜːkə/
US/ˈfæktəri ˌwɜːrkər/
Meaning
nouncountable
Someone who is paid to make goods, often by operating machines or doing repeated tasks, in a factory.
Grammar: Plural is factory workers: many factory workers.
Patterns
- a factory worker at a plant
My grandfather was a factory worker who built car engines for thirty years.
The factory workers voted to accept the new contract.
She started as a factory worker and later became a supervisor.
Word forms
| plural | factory workers |
|---|
Common combinations
- factory worker's wages
- A factory worker's wages rose after the union deal.
- laid-off factory worker
- Many laid-off factory workers retrained as electricians.
- assembly-line factory worker
- The assembly-line factory worker repeated the same step all day.
- become a factory worker
- He left school to become a factory worker.
- union factory worker
- A union factory worker earns extra overtime pay.
Synonyms and how they differ
- laborer
- Laborer is broader and covers any manual worker, while factory worker names the setting.
- operative
- Operative is a more formal or industrial term for someone who runs machinery.
- assembler
- Assembler describes someone who puts parts together, while factory worker covers any job on the production floor.
Opposites
office workermanager
Word family
- factory noun
- a building where goods are made
- work noun
- effort done for pay
- worker noun
- a person who does a job
- manufacture verb
- to make goods in large numbers
Commonly confused: factory worker or factor?
factory worker vs factor
A factor is one cause or element in a situation; a factory is a place where goods are made.
Practice
Which person is a factory worker?
Choose one answer.
A factory worker makes goods in a factory, which production-line bolt tightening shows.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “factory worker”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.
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