construct

Formsconstructs, constructing, constructed

Pluralconstructs

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To build or form something by assembling its separate parts.

   Engineers construct large dams to control the flow of rivers.

   The team constructed a temporary shelter from scrap metal.

   Similarbuild, erect, assemble, make, fabricate

   Oppositedemolish, dismantle, destroy, raze

   Note

   Two prepositions name the materials, as in constructed from spares and constructed of random stones. From points to where the parts were gathered; of points to the stuff the finished thing consists of, though the line between them is loose. The verb always takes an object: you construct something, and a thing is constructed, often in a passive phrase that follows the noun.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A concept or theoretical model built up in the mind rather than observed directly.

   Gender as a social construct has been widely debated by sociologists.

   Researchers treated motivation as a construct measured through several survey items.

   Similarconcept, notion, idea, model, abstraction

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A thing that has been built or formed by assembling parts.

   The sculpture was an elaborate construct of welded steel rods.

   The footbridge is a remarkable construct combining stone and iron.

   Similarstructure, construction, creation, assemblage

   Note

   Latin supplies the image behind the word. Cōnstruō meant "to heap together," from com- "together" and struō "I pile up," and this concrete noun keeps that picture of parts piled into one thing. The same Latin verb gave English construe, its doublet. In computing the noun has a settled use: loops and conditional statements are a programmer's constructs, the building blocks a language provides.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To build a sentence, argument, or similar unit by arranging words or ideas.

   Skilled lawyers construct careful arguments to persuade the jury.

   He constructed each sentence with precise and deliberate word choice.

   Similarbuild, formulate, compose, frame, devise

   Note

   Grammar uses the builder's verb for words. A sentence is constructed with a subject, verb and object, much as the building sense puts physical parts together. The verb also reaches past syntax to anything assembled from ideas. Marita Sturken's Tangled Memories (1997) says Vietnam War films serve "to construct history," which presents history as something put together rather than simply found.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   In geometry, to draw a figure exactly to given specifications using geometric tools and methods, such as a compass and straightedge.

   With only a compass and straightedge, you can construct an equilateral triangle.

   She constructed the perpendicular bisector of the line segment.

   Similardraw

   Note

   Geometry gives the verb a strict meaning. To construct a figure is to produce it with set instruments, classically compass and straightedge, so that each step follows exactly from points and lines already drawn rather than from measuring. That is why textbook problems open with the bare imperative, as in construct a circle through each vertex of a triangle, and why a sketch that merely looks right does not count.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In genetics, an artificially made segment of nucleic acid intended for transfer into a target cell or tissue.

   Researchers injected the DNA construct into the embryo.

   The construct was designed to express a fluorescent protein.

   Note

   In the genetics lab the word usually means DNA cloned into a vector so that it can carry a gene of interest into a cell. Once inside, the construct may express that gene or modify one already there. It is an ordinary countable noun, with one construct and several constructs, and it is often named by what it carries or does.

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