factory [M16th] A factor [LME] was, particularly in Scotland, an estate manager or agent, with the mathematical sense not developing until the mid 17th century. From this developed the sense of a place where a factor worked. A factory in the late 16th century was a trading company’s foreign base or station. The first use of the word in something like the modern sense came in the early 17th century, but until the Victorian era a building where goods were produced was more usually called a manufactory [M17th], from Latin manufactus ‘made by hand’ from manus ‘hand’ and factus ‘made’. The root of factory is Latin facere ‘to make or do’, the source of a great many English words such as fact, factor, feat (all LME), and feature [ME]. The sense ‘a place where things are made’ probably came from Latin factorium ‘oil press’.