- the totality of the changes in economic and social organization that began about 1760 in England and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines, such as the power loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments.
- any period of change to the economic and social organization of a country, region, etc., that is characterized by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines and the concentration of industry in large establishments.
- the transformation in the 18th and 19th centuries of first Britain and then other W European countries and the US into industrial nations
