habitual diligence in any employment or pursuit, either bodily or mental; steady attention to business; assiduity; -- opposed to sloth and idleness; as, industry pays debts, while idleness or despair will increase them.-any department or branch of art, occupation, or business; especially, one which employs much labor and capital and is a distinct branch of trade; as, the sugar industry; the iron industry; the cotton industry.-human exertion of any kind employed for the creation of value, and regarded by some as a species of capital or wealth; labor.