architecture
Pluralarchitectures (some meanings)
- 1The art and science of designing buildings and other structures and managing their construction, especially when they are well proportioned and decorated.
The firm is known for architecture that blends glass fronts with traditional stonework.
He spent years learning architecture before opening his own studio.
Note
The discipline behind every other sense of the word. It came through French from Latin architectūra and is built on architect, whose Greek source arkhitéktōn meant a chief builder or principal craftsman. As the name of the field it is uncountable and takes no article: she studied architecture. Used with the, as in the architecture throughout NYC, it means a place's buildings taken together.
- 2A particular style or manner of building design, such as the look shared by structures from one era or region.
The cathedral is a fine example of Romanesque architecture.
Visitors admire the colonial architecture lining the old harbor.
Similarstyle
- 3The overall design of a system or product and the way its parts fit together.
The team documented the architecture of the entire platform before coding began.
A clean architecture lets developers replace components without breaking the rest.
Similardesign, structure, framework
Note
Kernels and billing systems both have an architecture in this sense, and the word takes two shapes. One is the architecture of the company's billing system. The other is a compound with the system named first, as in P.C.P. Bhatt's 2004 course module Unix Kernel Architecture. Either way it means how the parts are arranged and fit together.
- 4
- 5A family of CPUs that share a common instruction set and offer partial or full compatibility with software built for one another.
The x86 architecture has dominated desktop computers for decades.
Switching to a new architecture often means recompiling existing software.
Note
In computing, the family is defined by its instruction set rather than by any one chip. Machine code built for one member runs, fully or partially, on the others without recompiling. That shared instruction set is what makes it a family, and it separates this sense from a single chip model, where the word names one particular design.
- 6The specific model or design of a particular microchip or CPU.
The processor's architecture includes eight cores and a large cache.
Reviewers praised the architecture of the company's newest graphics chip.
Similardesign
Note
Here the word narrows from a lineage to one design: the layout, components and engineering choices that set a particular chip apart. It is freely countable, as in the Intel architectures. The line between this sense and the instruction-set family is easily blurred, so context decides whether a writer means one model or a whole compatible line.
- 7Construction in a general sense; the frame, structure, or workmanship of something.
The cabinet's solid architecture reflects careful craftsmanship.
Critics noted the sturdy architecture of the medieval walls.
Similarconstruction, structure, framework, build
Note
A wider sense, in which architecture is the way anything is put together, not only a building. Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great speaks of "the wondrous Architecture of the world." Thomas Burnet calls the forming of the Earth "a piece of Divine Architecture," and John Tyndall in 1871 writes of "the architecture of grasses, plants, and trees." It suits natural and made things alike, usually followed by of.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from French 'architecture', from Latin 'architectūra'. It ultimately comes from 'architect', which goes back to the Ancient Greek 'arkhitéktōn', literally meaning 'chief builder' or 'principal craftsman'.