n. Habitual diligence in any employment or task, whether bodily or mental; sedulous attention to business; assiduity.n. Productive labor; specifically, labor employed in manufacturing; manufacture; hence, a particular branch of work; a trade: as, the iron industry; the cotton industry: often used, in the plural, of trades in general: as, the arts and industries of a country.n. Synonyms Application, Diligence, etc. (see assiduity); activity, laboriousness.