built

Pluralbuilts

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of build.

   Workers built the new stadium in just under two years.

   The cathedral was built from local stone quarried nearby.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty. As a simple past it stands alone (they built it), and as a past participle it follows have or be (they have built it; it was built). The regular form builded survives only as an archaism in older or deliberately old-fashioned writing. In present-day English, built is the only safe choice for either job.

2. 2
   adjectivecolloquial

   Muscular and toned, with a strong, physically well-developed body.

   Like the powerful frame of a competitive weightlifter.

   He came back from boot camp noticeably more built than before.

   She's built like a sprinter, all lean muscle and power.

   Similarmuscular, buff, ripped, brawny, strapping

   Oppositescrawny, puny, weedy, flabby

3. 3
   nounobsolete

   The shape, form, or structural design of a thing.

   The sailor sees the burthen, the built, and the distance of a ship at sea, while she is a great way off.

   1764, Thomas Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense

   Note

   A noun English has since let go, and it now survives only in older prose. Thomas Reid, in his Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764), has a sailor judge "the burthen, the built, and the distance of a ship" while she is still far off. Today the same idea belongs to build, as in a ship's build or a person's build. Use built as a noun only when writing deliberately in a period voice.

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