produce
Formsproduces, producing, produced
Formsproduces, producing, produced
- 1To make, grow, manufacture or otherwise bring something into existence; to yield output.
These farms produce most of the region's grain.
The reaction produces heat and a small amount of gas.
Note
The broadest sense, and the one closest to the Latin behind it: prōdūcō, "to lead forth," from prō- "forth" and dūcō "to lead." Its subject can be a factory, a gland or a nation, as when Macaulay writes of the greatest jurist his country had produced. When the object is an effect, such as a sensation or a result, see the causing sense.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Produce derives from Latin prōdūcō, meaning "to lead forth," formed from prō- "forth" and dūcō "to lead." en.wiktionary.org
- Macaulay writes of the greatest jurist his country had produced. gutenberg.org
- 2To bring about a particular outcome, effect, or response.
Small changes in the recipe can produce very different results.
In the trial, the new drug produced no serious side effects in most patients.
UsageUsually with an outcome as its object: produce results, produce an effect, produce a reaction.
- 3Harvested farm goods sold as food, especially fruits and vegetables, but sometimes including eggs, dairy, and meat.
Local produce filled the market stalls at dawn.
Restaurants in the area source their produce directly from nearby growers.
UsageNo a and no plural: fresh produce, local produce, farm produce.
Similarcrops
Note
In trade writing its broader sense pairs with manufactures, setting natural products against made goods.
- 4To sponsor, finance, and present a film, show, or similar work to an audience or the public.
An independent company produced the festival's opening film.
They produce both television series and feature films.
UsageOften produced by someone, or with an adverb before it: independently produced, beautifully produced.
Note
Show business has its own maker: the producer finances and organizes the work, a role distinct from directing. The sense is not limited to film. Records are produced, and so are bands, as when a musician hopes someone "might produce us." For the studio craft of shaping sound, see the recording-studio sense.
- 5To make something available for inspection, or to hand it over to a person or authority.
Drivers must produce a valid license when stopped by police.
He produced the signed contract as evidence.
UsageOften produce something from a pocket or bag, or produce a ticket or ID when asked.
Note
A verb of showing rather than making: what is produced already exists and is brought out for someone to check. Its natural home is the courtroom and the checkpoint, where people produce a witness, produce identification or produce travel documents, and it often implies a demand. Railway writing stretches it to bringing out a locomotive when one was needed. The core idea stays the same: supplying what is called for.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Railway writing uses 'produce' for supplying a locomotive when needed. en.wiktionary.org
- 6To shape or alter recorded sound using studio technology, rather than merely performing it.
The band produced their latest album themselves.
Many young artists now produce entire records on their laptops.
Note
A studio word that can grade and judge: a highly produced sound is one shaped by editing, layering and processing rather than captured as played. Here the degree adverb measures studio work, not the backing of the presenting sense. Artists who produce their own records do this shaping themselves, and many now do it on a laptop.
Less common meanings
- 7The total output of any process or activity, such as what a mine, a factory, or a piece of land yields, not only fresh fruit and vegetables.
The annual produce of the estate barely covered its expenses.
For a century the mill ground the produce of every farm in the valley, from wheat to barley.
UsageUsually the produce of something: the produce of the estate. For one item made, use product.
- 8To extend a line or area, drawing it out to a greater length.
Produce the base until it intersects the perpendicular.
The diagram shows side AB produced to point D.
Note
Geometry keeps the old Latin picture of leading a line forward. A construction tells you to produce a side of a triangle, and the past participle follows the line's name: side AB produced to D, the base produced until it meets the perpendicular. Readers outside mathematics may stumble here, because nothing new is made. The line is simply carried on in the same direction.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Produce derives from Latin elements meaning to lead forth or forward. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin ancestor also meant to lengthen or extend, consistent with the geometrical sense. en.wiktionary.org
- 9The offspring of an animal or person, considered collectively.
The breeder recorded the produce of each mare in his ledger.
The mare's produce has included three race winners, so her foals now sell for high prices.
Similaroffspring, progeny, young
Note
A breeder's word for a dam's young taken as a group. The Turf and the Racehorse (1865) weighs a champion mare against "the probable success of her produce." Because it is collective, a mare has produce, not produces. Outside the world of breeding, offspring or young is the natural choice.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The Turf and the Racehorse was first published in 1865. labibliothequemondialeducheval.org
- The book discusses a first-class racing mare using the quoted words about her offspring. en.wiktionary.org
- 10Food for livestock and pets, sold as a category of goods.
The rural co-op stocks produce for sheep, pigs, and household pets.
On the way home we stopped at the produce store for a bag of chook pellets and a bale of hay.
Similarfeed
Note
An Australian trade sense in which the word names what animals eat rather than what farms grow: feed for livestock and pets, sold as its own category of goods. Readers elsewhere will hear fruit and vegetables, so outside Australia say feed or pet food to be understood.
- 11To draw out or prolong something, making it last longer in time or extent.
Similarprolong
Note
Lengthening in time, now gone from the language: Thomas Browne, in Religio Medici (1642), speaks of the providence it takes "to produce a man's life unto threescore." In modern writing, use prolong or protract instead, because this meaning will read as a mistake. Its spatial cousin survives in the geometer's "extend a line", which is why "produce a line" still sounds correct.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Thomas Browne wrote Religio Medici, first published in 1642. celm.folger.edu
- Browne uses produce to mean prolong in the quoted passage about providence and lifespan; the item's apostrophe modernizes the spelling. penelope.uchicago.edu
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Latin prōdūcō ("to lead forth") joined prō- ("forth, forward") and dūcō ("to lead, bring"); it reached English as Middle English produce. The noun comes from the verb.