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
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
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 11 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share