1. The art and science of designing and erecting buildings.

2. Buildings and other large structures: the low, brick-and-adobe architecture of the Southwest.

3. A style and method of design and construction: Byzantine architecture.

4. Orderly arrangement of parts; structure: the architecture of the federal bureaucracy; the architecture of a novel.

5. Computers The overall design or structure of a computer system or microprocessor, including the hardware or software required to run it.

6. Any of various disciplines concerned with the design or organization of complex systems: enterprise architecture.