Plural of cocoonery; places where silkworms are raised to produce silk cocoons; silk production facilities.
From 'cocoonery' (cocoon plus the suffix '-ery' meaning a place or business) plus the plural '-ies'. These were especially common in 19th-century sericulture operations.
In 19th-century Europe, cocooneries were booming businesses—the Chinese had kept sericulture secret for thousands of years, but once the technique spread west, everyone wanted to raise silkworms for the luxury textile trade.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.