industrialization

noun

in·​dus·​tri·​al·​i·​za·​tion in-ˌdə-strē-ə-lə-ˈzā-shən 

: the act or process of industrializing : the widespread development of industries in a region, country, culture, etc.

Industrialization and modern insect control have improved the quality of life around the globe, but they have also added some 100,000 chemical compounds that, some scientists worry, could affect the health of people and wildlife.

—Hannah Fairfield

Investors became convinced that growing global demand for energy, the industrialization of China and India and the lack of spare production capacity would keep crude prices surging ever upward.

—A. Gary Shilling

Television, like industrialization and democracy, was slow to arrive in Italy, coming in 1954, several years after it was introduced in the US.

—Alexander Stille

Examples of industrialization in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This historical period -- which ran from the 1870s and to the early 20th century -- saw rapid industrialization and significant wealth disparity, with a small elite growing rich while the working class faced poverty. —Nathan Smith, ABC News, 25 Oct. 2024

Landscape artists like John Constable grappled with the effects of industrialization in their works and created aesthetic responses to emerging data about climate—a theme explored in Constable’s studies of clouds in one of the exhibition’s galleries. —Anne Wallentine, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Oct. 2024

But as the world went through waves of industrialization and the corporation rose, the training of workers took on the same mass quality as other areas of production. —Allison Salisbury, Forbes, 7 Oct. 2024

The idea is that many of us have become divorced from nature by the forces of capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization. —Eve Andrews, The Atlantic, 26 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1892, in the meaning defined above