Skunk Works

Trademark.

1. engineering, technical, consulting, and advisory services with respect to designing, building, equipping, and testing commercial and military aircraft and related equipment at Lockheed Martin Corporation.

noun

1. (usually lowercase) Also skunk works, skunk·works []. Slang. an often secret experimental laboratory or facility for producing innovative products, as in the computer or aerospace field.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Skunk Works¹

First recorded in 1943 Skunk Works fordef 1, 1965–70 Skunk Works fordef 2; after Big Barnsmell's Skonk Works, where the illicit liquor Kickapoo Joy Juice was made, in Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner

Example Sentences

The high desert city also is home to Lockheed Martin’s famed “Skunk Works,” a secretive cutting edge military research and development facilty.

From Los Angeles Times

Framery Labs, a skunk works inside the company that dreams up new projects, at first thought to track how much employees laugh during meetings, but then decided to go a step further and put pressure-sensitive foil into the pod’s seat.

From Seattle Times

For most of the recent past, electric cars were relegated to the fringes of the automotive industry, the domain of fuel-crisis tinkerers, retrofitters and automaker skunk works departments.

From Washington Post

At Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California, Johnson had created the "Skunk Works," a secret research-and-development lab hidden from prying eyes by tall barbed-wire fences and blacked-out windows.

From Literature

A few months later, a small fleet of U-2 planes began rolling off the Skunk Works assembly lines.

From Literature