structuring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of structure.

   The committee is structuring the proposal to address each concern in turn.

   Structuring the argument carefully, she built toward her conclusion.

   Note

   The -ing form of a transitive verb, so it nearly always takes a direct object, as in structuring the proposal or structuring an argument. The final e of structure drops before -ing. The same spelling serves as the noun for arrangement, and an object is the test: in the structuring of the curriculum the word is a noun, while in structuring the curriculum it is the verb.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The arrangement or organization of the parts that make up something.

   The structuring of the organization changed after the merger.

   Effective structuring of the curriculum improved student outcomes across the district.

   Similarorganization, arrangement, design, configuration

   Note

   A noun that can be counted as well as used in the mass. Alongside the structuring of a plan, writers speak of structurings in the plural, meaning distinct patterns of arrangement. Patricia Noller and Mary Anne Fitzpatrick's Perspectives on Marital Interaction (1988) links a more dominant spouse to more rigid "transactional structurings": the settled habits that decide who does what, and when.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The practice of breaking large sums of money into smaller transactions to evade financial reporting requirements.

   Investigators charged her with structuring after she split the cash across a dozen accounts.

   Banks train tellers to spot structuring in patterns of just-under-threshold deposits.

   Similarsmurfing

   Note

   Finance and law use the word for a specific money-laundering tactic, which is why it can stand alone as a charge: someone is charged with structuring. Each deposit is kept below the mandatory reporting threshold so that no currency transaction report is triggered. Smurfing names the same practice. Context separates it from the general sense of arrangement: the structuring of a company is neutral, but structuring on its own, around a bank, means evasion.

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