manufacturer

Other forms: manufacturers

A manufacturer is a person or business that makes goods to sell. If you buy a shirt that has a "made in the USA" label, it means that the manufacturer of the shirt is in the United States.

You can use the noun manufacturer for any company (or individual) that makes products, but it's most often used for things made on a very large scale, like cars, appliances, and computers. The word comes from manufacture, which as a noun originally meant "something made by hand," from the Latin roots manus, "hand," and factura, "a working."