cottage industry
noun
1
: an industry whose labor force consists of family units or individuals working at home with their own equipment
2
: a small and often informally organized industry
3
: a limited but enthusiastically pursued activity or subject
this debate about sex and law became a cottage industry for feminist academics—
Wendy Kaminer
Wendy KaminerExamples of cottage industry in a Sentence
weaving, pottery, and other cottage industries
Recent Examples on the Web
As a result of these and other developments, declaring the demise of the two-state solution has become something of a cottage industry.
—Richard Haass, Foreign Affairs, 3 Sep. 2025
Prompt Engineering Was Never the Endgame When ChatGPT first captured public attention, a new cottage industry emerged around prompt engineering, which is the art of crafting precise text instructions to guide model behavior.
—Jared Bowns, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
If that were to drop on top of this, a lot of these little cottage industries could wind up in a death spiral.
—Bailey Schulz, USA Today, 23 Aug. 2025
This cottage industry's collective frustration hit a peak in mid 2023.
—Andrew Cunningham, ArsTechnica, 21 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cottage industry
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Richard Haass, Foreign Affairs, 3 Sep. 2025
Prompt Engineering Was Never the Endgame When ChatGPT first captured public attention, a new cottage industry emerged around prompt engineering, which is the art of crafting precise text instructions to guide model behavior.
—Jared Bowns, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
If that were to drop on top of this, a lot of these little cottage industries could wind up in a death spiral.
—Bailey Schulz, USA Today, 23 Aug. 2025
This cottage industry's collective frustration hit a peak in mid 2023.
—Andrew Cunningham, ArsTechnica, 21 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cottage industry
Cite this Entry
“Cottage industry.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cottage%20industry. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.
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