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

The Soviet regime, having survived Stalinist terror, famine, and industrialization, as well as World War II and de-Stalinization, could have survived the stagnation of the mid-1980s as other, poorer communist regimes such as China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam did. —Max Boot, Foreign Affairs, 6 Sep. 2024

The rapid post-war industrialization of animal exploitation gave rise to a new generation of activists. —Jan Dutkiewicz, Vox, 8 Aug. 2024

The reference period, 1850–1900, was before most greenhouse gases associated with global industrialization—which increase the heat present in Earth’s ocean and atmosphere—had been emitted. —Christopher Merchant, WIRED, 17 Aug. 2024

The rapid urbanization and industrialization that took place from 1880 onward exacerbated interracial competition for land, as well as for political and economic dominance at the local level. —Sotiris Kampanelis, Scientific American, 25 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1892, in the meaning defined above