Also means
surveillance, shadowing (by police)
Usage Note
Filature has two quite distinct uses: in the industrial sense it is a factory where fibres (wool, cotton, silk) are spun into thread; in detective and police contexts it means the act of trailing a suspect, from the verb filer ('to tail' someone). The two meanings rarely cause confusion in context.
Examples
"La filature de soie emploie cinquante ouvriers."
Natural Translation
The silk mill employs fifty workers.
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