# construction

Pronunciation: say "kuhn-STRUK-shuhn" /kənˈstɹʌkʃən/

## Noun

1. The process of building or putting something together.
   - Simple: The act of building or making something.
   - _The construction of the cathedral spanned several centuries._
   - _Heavy rain delayed construction of the apartment complex._
2. The trade or industry concerned with building structures.
   - Simple: The job of building houses, roads, and other structures.
   - _She left teaching to start a career in construction._
   - _The construction sector slowed sharply during the recession._
3. The way in which something is built or assembled.
   - Simple: The way in which something is built or put together.
   - _The bridge's steel construction allows it to bear heavy loads._
   - _Reviewers praised the laptop for its sturdy construction._
4. Something that has been built or put together from parts, such as a building, a model or a work of art.
   - Simple: Something that has been built or made by putting parts together, like a building, a model or a piece of art.
   - _The sculpture was a delicate construction of wire and glass._
   - _The sculpture in the lobby is a towering construction of glass panels and steel cables._
5. An idea, category or belief that people or a society have invented and come to agree on, as opposed to one existing in nature.
   - Simple: An idea, belief or way of grouping things that people have made up and agreed on, not something found in nature.
   - _Many historians treat national borders as a political construction rather than a natural division of land._
   - _The essay argues that ideas of childhood are cultural constructions that have changed over the centuries._
6. The way a text, statement or action is understood or explained; an interpretation, especially of a law.
   - Simple: The way someone understands or explains what words or actions mean, especially the words of a law.
   - _The court favored a strict construction of the statute._
   - _Different readers placed very different constructions on the poem's ending._
7. In grammar, a particular pattern by which words are combined into a meaningful phrase, clause, or sentence.
   - Simple: In grammar, a pattern for putting words together to make a meaningful phrase or sentence.
   - _Passive constructions place the affected thing before the verb._
   - _The sentence relies on an unusual grammatical construction._
8. A figure, or the method of drawing it, that uses only a compass to draw arcs and a straightedge to draw straight lines.
   - Simple: A way of drawing a shape, or the shape itself, using only a compass and a straight edge.
   - _The classic construction for an equilateral triangle uses two intersecting arcs._
   - _Greek mathematicians prized constructions achievable with compass and straightedge alone._

## Origin

From Middle English construccioun, borrowed through Old French construction from Latin cōnstructiō (from the verb cōnstruere). It can also be seen as construct + the suffix -ion.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/construction (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).