structured

1. 1
   adjective

   Arranged in an organized way, with parts ordered according to a clear plan.

   The company offers a structured training program that builds skills over several months.

   Researchers preferred a structured interview, where every participant answered the same set of questions.

   Similarorganized, systematic, ordered, methodical, planned

   Oppositeunstructured, disorganized, haphazard, informal

   Note

   An adjective built directly from the noun, structure plus -ed, which shares its spelling with the verb's past participle. Unlike the participle, it grades: a plan can be more structured or the most structured of all. It often appears beside its opposite, unstructured, as when free time is called structured or unstructured. That contrast sets time arranged in advance against time left open.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of structure.

   The architects structured the building to withstand earthquakes.

   He had structured the deal carefully to minimize the taxes owed.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. It is the simple past (they structured the course) and the past participle, which pairs with have in perfect tenses (she has structured it) and with be in the passive (the loan was structured over twenty years). The verb is transitive, so something is always being structured. After be it can blur into the descriptive adjective. If the sentence names who did the arranging, it is the verb.

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