Revision 542448165 of "Material" on enwiki

{{Distinguish|Materiel}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Unreferenced stub|auto=yes|date=December 2009}}

'''Material''' is anything made of [[matter]], constituted of one or more [[Chemical substance|substance]]s. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to [[Production, costs, and pricing|production]] or [[manufacturing]]. In this sense, materials are the parts required to make something else, from [[building]]s and [[Art medium|art]] to [[Star formation|stars]] and [[computer]]s.

==Raw materials and processing==
A material can be anything solid: a finished product in its own right or an unprocessed [[raw material]]. Raw materials are first harvested from the earth and divided into a form that can be easily transported and stored, then processed to produce semi-finished materials. These can be input into a new cycle of production and [[Finishing (disambiguation)|finishing]] processes to create finished materials, ready for [[Distribution (business)|distribution]], [[construction]], and [[Consumption (economics)|consumption]].

==Some examples of raw materials==
;Cotton
An example of a raw material is [[cotton]], which is harvested from plants. Cotton can be processed into rope (also considered a raw material), which can then be woven into [[Textile|cloth]], a semi-finished material. Cutting and sewing the fabric turns it into a [[Clothing|garment]], which is a finished product. 

;Steel
[[Steel-making]] is another example – raw materials in the form of [[ore]] are mined, refined and processed into [[steel]], a semi-finished material. Steel is then used as an input in many other industries to make finished products. Some materials rust.

==See also==
* [[Chemical compound]]
* [[Chemical substance]]
* [[Materials science]]
* [[List of building materials]]
* [[Raw material]]

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary|material}}
{{Commonscat|Materials}}

[[Category:Materials| ]]

{{Industry-stub}}

[[ko:재료]]
[[lv:Materiāls]]
[[ja:素材]]