construction
/kənˈstrʌkʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun]
1The action of building something, typically a large structure: there was a skyscraper under construction...
- With two housing developments currently under construction in Bangor, the town has got a major face-lift in the last five years.
- Another day, James hops a city bus and rides it to the end of the line, a field out in the country where new housing is under construction.
- It is located near a nursing home on extensive grounds and there is a housing development under construction to the southern side.
Synonyms
building, erection, putting up, setting up, raising, establishment, assembly, manufacture, fabrication, forming, fashioning, contriving, creation, making
1.1The industry of constructing buildings, roads, etc. 50,000 more jobs will go from construction...
- Not many responders had a history of dusty work, such as experience in road and building construction and the cement industry.
- Today, the main use of bitumen is in the road making industry for construction and maintenance.
- The CFMEU represents workers in mining and construction, two industries where there is a greater risk than most that workers won't make it home at the end of the day.
1.2The style or method used in the building of something: the mill is of brick construction...
- Some furniture is just butted up together and is nailed, I do not recommend that style of construction.
- Application of a water repellent does not negate proper brick construction and detailing procedures.
- Santa Barbara has a strict planning code that forces architects and developers to use a Spanish style of construction, and prohibits any building of more than two storeys.
1.3 [count noun] A building or other structure: the central waterway was a spectacular construction...
- Our present building is a modern construction with seven classrooms.
- The group has been equally impressed by less spectacular constructions - bus shelters, flyovers, washing machines.
- Older buildings still outnumber newer constructions unlike so many Thai towns and cities.
Synonyms
structure, building, edifice, assembly, pile, framework
2The creation of an abstract entity: language plays a large part in our construction of reality...
- It's all very big and heady - the world of abstract construction - but it's child's play, really.
- This book should generate some lively ideas for creative work tying in with construction and invention, imagination and probability.
- We did a lot of creative construction back in the founding.
2.1 [count noun] An interpretation or explanation: you could put an honest construction upon their conduct...
- The reader will not expect to find in these pages any novel views, and novel constructions of the Constitution.
- However, an analysis of early modern constructions of perception and the role of the passions, reveals something slightly different.
- So I would argue that moralities be understood as constructions, which creates a space in which they can be interrogated.
Synonyms
interpretation, reading, meaning, explanation, inference, explication, construal, analysis, version, understanding, view, impression
informal take
2.2 Grammar The arrangement of words according to syntactical rules: sentence construction...
- The only solution is that both are uses of the plain form in a subjunctive main clause construction.
- Language experts can tell from sentence construction, phrase and idiom whether or not you think in the language of your speech or writing.
- That tells us that the construction is an interrogative complement clause in each case.
Synonyms
composition, formation, structure, organization
Derivatives
constructional
/ adjective ...- Their adventurous designs are clearly in for reed by the structural tectonics and constructional logic championed by their tutors.
- Together with the engineer, the team devised a new constructional system of steel channels, mesh, mortar and waterproofing, the structure being lined inside and out with local tiles.
- Employing a variety of constructional and environmental control systems, a new porous building envelope permits flows of air, light and student activities.
constructionally
- Third, if we try to ascertain what he is after constructionally, we can more readily bring to bear those constructional, procedural, and analytic skills which are, at present, our important repertoires.
- Schools also tend to view their missions constructionally, and there is an important constitutional message attached.
- Such approaches are constructionally oriented; they build repertoires.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Old French from Latin constructio(n-), from construere 'heap together' (see construct).