packinghouse
noun
pack·ing·house
ˈpa-kiŋ-ˌhau̇s 
: an establishment for slaughtering livestock and processing and packing meat, meat products, and by-products
also
: one for processing and packing other foodstuffs
called also packing plant
Examples of packinghouse in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The Stockyards location is a towering, two-story, 11,416-square-foot brick cold-storage warehouse and meat locker that opened in the heyday of the Fort Worth Stockyards cattle market and nearby meat packinghouses.
—
Bud Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 Sep. 2025
Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country’s food.
—Aamer Madhani, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2025
Demand for beef on the West Coast of the U.S., for instance, can be cheaper to fulfill from the Canadian prairies than from an East Coast packinghouse.
—Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 8 Feb. 2025
Part of the first wave of the Great Migration, Beverly was a packinghouse worker and union leader.
—Robert M. Marovich, Chicago Tribune, 3 Feb. 2025
One of our subjects is a packinghouse worker who loved playing boogie-woogie on the piano.
—Monica Eng, Axios, 29 Jan. 2025
Elsewhere in the packinghouse, printers would whirr and the steam-hiss of sanitizing equipment would drone for 10 hours a day, six days a week and only rest, like the workers, on Sundays.
—Paul Brady, Travel + Leisure, 24 Aug. 2023
Black workers were often assigned to the dirtiest jobs in the packinghouse, including the kill floor, where men worked up to their knees in blood.
—Michael Grabell, ProPublica, 21 Dec. 2020
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be allowed full access to packinghouse workers, and the meat inspectors of the USDA, as well as the packinghouse workers themselves, should be granted a louder voice in determining safe line speeds.
—Ted Genoways, The New Republic, 4 Aug. 2020
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.
Bud Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 Sep. 2025
Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country’s food.
—Aamer Madhani, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2025
Demand for beef on the West Coast of the U.S., for instance, can be cheaper to fulfill from the Canadian prairies than from an East Coast packinghouse.
—Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 8 Feb. 2025
Part of the first wave of the Great Migration, Beverly was a packinghouse worker and union leader.
—Robert M. Marovich, Chicago Tribune, 3 Feb. 2025
One of our subjects is a packinghouse worker who loved playing boogie-woogie on the piano.
—Monica Eng, Axios, 29 Jan. 2025
Elsewhere in the packinghouse, printers would whirr and the steam-hiss of sanitizing equipment would drone for 10 hours a day, six days a week and only rest, like the workers, on Sundays.
—Paul Brady, Travel + Leisure, 24 Aug. 2023
Black workers were often assigned to the dirtiest jobs in the packinghouse, including the kill floor, where men worked up to their knees in blood.
—Michael Grabell, ProPublica, 21 Dec. 2020
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be allowed full access to packinghouse workers, and the meat inspectors of the USDA, as well as the packinghouse workers themselves, should be granted a louder voice in determining safe line speeds.
—Ted Genoways, The New Republic, 4 Aug. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Packinghouse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/packinghouse. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
packinghouse
noun
pack·ing·house
ˈpak-iŋ-ˌhau̇s
: an establishment for preparing foods and especially meat
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share