mass production
[f. mass n.2 + production.]
The production of manufactured articles in large quantities by a standardized process. Also transf. and attrib.
| 1920 Teacher's World 19 May 283/2 (Advt.), Mass production. High class..chairs. 1922 Turner & Wood Man. Up-to-Date Organisation 110 Mass Production is a continuous replica of a standardised master-pattern or design. 1923 J. M. Scott-Maxwell Costing & Price-Fixing 31 Factories on a mass production basis will have all material most carefully specified, examined, and tested. 1929 W. Deeping Roper's Row xxxii. 353 The new world of smudged faces, mass-production man in the making. 1930 G. B. Shaw Apple Cart i. 25 Don't forget our racing motor boats and cars, sir: the finest on earth, and all individually designed. No cheap mass production stuff there. 1944 W. Temple Church looks Forward x. 82 The problems due to mass-production press upon us. 1946 J. S. Huxley Unesco i. 18 A mass-production system can indirectly destroy creative initiative and aesthetic appreciation. 1947 J. Hayward Prose Lit. Since 1939 26 Literary and historical biography was already a flourishing industry. What particular..forces were concerned in its mass-production cannot be investigated here. 1948 [see conveyor belt s.v. conveyor 4 c]. 1962 H. O. Beecheno Introd. Business Stud. x. 86 Mass-production methods have called for mass-selling methods. 1967 M. McLuhan Medium is Massage 50 Printing..provided the first uniformly repeatable ‘commodity’, the first assembly line—mass production. |
Hence ˌmass-proˈduce v. trans. and intr., to manufacture (articles) by mass production; also ˌmass-proˈduced ppl. a.; ˌmass-proˈducer; ˌmass-proˈducing ppl. a.; ˌmass-ˈproduct.
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 661 They drank..Epps's mass-product, the creature cocoa. 1923 Daily Mail 22 Jan. 5 All cars made in the United States are not necessarily mass-produced. 1929 E. Gill Art-Nonsense 318 The ordinary person..says, what is to hinder him from having..mass-produced pots and pans designed by artists to look artistic? 1929 A. Huxley Do what you Will 90 The mass-producers will do their best to make everybody more and more prosperous. 1930 ― Vulgarity in Lit. vii. 45 Asceticism is not popular in this mass-producing age. 1938 New Statesman 23 July 143/2 Trades which mass-produce luxury or semi-luxury goods. 1940 Life 9 Dec. 84/2 U.S. now mass-produces. 1950 M. Hay Foot of Pride iii. 74 St. Vincent Ferrer and other preachers sent thousands of panic-stricken people to the font where a priest mechanically turned them into Christians. Theologians..decided that these mass-produced Christians had been validly baptized. 1954 Encounter Mar. 5/2 A mass-producing, mass-consuming society. 1958 Mass-produce [see battery 13 c]. 1967 E. Short Embroidery & Fabric Collage iii. 68 There is no way of mass-producing patchwork. 1973 Country Life 15 Mar. 718/1 This is our 18th Century style bedroom suite. Not for everyone because it is not mass-produced. |
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Add: mass-proˈducible a.
| 1975 Sci. Amer. Nov. 57/1 The JPL study emphasizes that a major effort will be required to achieve ‘mass-producible’ versions of the gas-turbine and Stirling power plants. 1991 Electronic Design 22 Aug. 30/3 An inexpensively mass-producible means of achieving a small, light package that frees designers from the spatial constraints of planar circuit boards. |