What does "refinery" mean?

A building, or a mass of machinery, used to produce refined products such as sugar, oil, or metals.

How do you pronounce "refinery"?

Pronounced //rɪˈfaɪnərɪ//.

Common synonyms include: armory, arsenal, assembly line, assembly plant, atomic energy plant, bindery.

//rɪˈfaɪnərɪ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Noun

1
A building, or a mass of machinery, used to produce refined products such as sugar, oil, or metals.
"An oil field was discovered at Karamai in 1955, the first of a number to be found in Dzungaria. This oil find has greatly helped China’s industrial development, and the oil fields are now linked to Lanchow by pipeline and by rail. Large refineries have been built at Lanchow and at Tushantzu in Dzungaria."
2
an industrial plant for purifying a crude substance wordnet

"Tom works long hours at the oil refinery."

From refine + -ry.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.