Adjacent Words

Structure definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

STRUCTURE, n. [L., to set or lay.]
1. Act of building; practice of erecting buildings.
His son builds on and never is content, till the last farthing is in structure spent.
2. Manner of building; form; make; construction; as the want of insight into the structure and constitution of the terraqueous globe.
3. Manner of organization of animals and vegetables, etc.
4. A building of any kind, but chiefly a building of some size or of magnificence; an edifice. The iron bridge over the Seine in Paris, is a beautiful structure.
There stands a structure of majestic frame.
5. In mineralogy, the particular arrangement of the integrant particles or molecules of a mineral.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a thing constructed; a complex entity constructed of many parts; "the structure consisted of a series of arches"; "she wore her hair in an amazing construction of whirls and ribbons" [syn: structure, construction]
2: the manner of construction of something and the arrangement of its parts; "artists must study the structure of the human body"; "the structure of the benzene molecule"
3: the complex composition of knowledge as elements and their combinations; "his lectures have no structure"
4: a particular complex anatomical part of a living thing; "he has good bone structure" [syn: structure, anatomical structure, complex body part, bodily structure, body structure]
5: the people in a society considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships; "the social organization of England and America is very different"; "sociologists have studied the changing structure of the family" [syn: social organization, social organisation, social structure, social system, structure] v
1: give a structure to; "I need to structure my days"

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Latin structura, from structus, past participle of struere to heap up, build — more at strew Date: 15th century 1. the action of building ; construction 2. a. something (as a building) that is constructed b. something arranged in a definite pattern of organization <a rigid totalitarian structure — J. L. Hess> <leaves and other plant structures> 3. manner of construction ; makeup <Gothic in structure> 4. a. the arrangement of particles or parts in a substance or body <soil structure> <molecular structure> b. organization of parts as dominated by the general character of the whole <economic structure> <personality structure> c. coherent form or organization <tried to give some structure to the children's lives> 5. the aggregate of elements of an entity in their relationships to each other <the structure of a language> • structureless adjective • structurelessness noun II. transitive verb (structured; structuring) Date: circa 1693 1. to form into or according to a structure 2. construct

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a a whole constructed unit, esp. a building. b the way in which a building etc. is constructed (has a flimsy structure). 2 a set of interconnecting parts of any complex thing; a framework (the structure of a sentence; a new wages structure). --v.tr. give structure to; organize; frame. Derivatives: structured adj. (also in comb.). structureless adj. Etymology: ME f. OF structure or L structura f. struere struct- build

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Structure Struc"ture, n. [L. structura, from struere, structum, to arrange, build, construct; perhaps akin to E. strew: cf. F. structure. Cf. Construe, Destroy, Instrument, Obstruct.] 1. The act of building; the practice of erecting buildings; construction. [R.] His son builds on, and never is content Till the last farthing is in structure spent. --J. Dryden, Jr. 2. Manner of building; form; make; construction. Want of insight into the structure and constitution of the terraqueous globe. --Woodward. 3. Arrangement of parts, of organs, or of constituent particles, in a substance or body; as, the structure of a rock or a mineral; the structure of a sentence. It [basalt] has often a prismatic structure. --Dana. 4. (Biol.) Manner of organization; the arrangement of the different tissues or parts of animal and vegetable organisms; as, organic structure, or the structure of animals and plants; cellular structure. 5. That which is built; a building; esp., a building of some size or magnificence; an edifice. There stands a structure of majestic frame. --Pope. Columnar structure. See under Columnar.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(structures, structuring, structured) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. The structure of something is the way in which it is made, built, or organized. The typical family structure of Freud's patients involved two parents and two children... The chemical structure of this particular molecule is very unusual. N-VAR: usu with supp, oft N of n 2. A structure is something that consists of parts connected together in an ordered way. The feet are highly specialised structures made up of 26 small delicate bones. N-COUNT: usu with supp 3. A structure is something that has been built. About half of those funds has gone to repair public roads, structures and bridges... = building N-COUNT 4. If you structure something, you arrange it in a careful, organized pattern or system. By structuring the course this way, we're forced to produce something the companies think is valuable. VERB: V n 5. see also report structure

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Construction, make, form, arrangement, conformation, configuration, constitution, mode of building, manner of making. 2. Formation, composition, arrangement of parts, texture. 3. Edifice, fabric, building, erection, pile.

Moby Thesaurus

Dymaxion house, IC analysis, Platonic form, Platonic idea, White House, action, adobe house, aesthetic form, anagnorisis, anatomy, angle, appositive, archetype, architectonics, architecture, argument, arrange, arrangement, array, art form, assemblage, assemble, assembly, atmosphere, attribute, attributive, background, build, build up, building, buildup, casa, cast, catastrophe, character, characterization, clarity, clear-cutness, clearness, cliff dwelling, coherence, color, combination, combine, complement, complex, complication, compose, composition, compound, concord, configuration, conformation, connectedness, consist of, consistency, constitute, constitution, construct, construction, construction modifier, consulate, continuity, contrivance, cool off, country house, country seat, crystallinity, cut, cutting, dacha, deanery, deep structure, definition, denouement, deploy, deployment, design, development, device, direct object, directness, disposal, dispose, disposition, distinctness, dwelling house, edifice, embassy, embodiment, embody, enter into, episode, erection, establishment, explicitness, fable, fabric, fabricate, fabrication, falling action, farm, farmhouse, fashion, fashioning, feel, figuration, figure, filler, finish, form, form-function unit, format, formation, frame, framework, function, genre, getup, gimmick, go into, grade, grain, granular texture, hall, harmonize, harmony, hierarchize, house, houseboat, immediate constituent analysis, impression, incident, incorporate, incorporation, indentation, indirect object, inner form, join, junction, knub, lake dwelling, lay out, layout, levels, limpidity, line, line up, lineup, living machine, local color, lodge, lucidity, make, make up, makeup, manor house, manse, marshal, marshaling, matrix, merge in, methodize, mix, mixture, modality, mode, model, modifier, mold, mood, morphology, motif, movement, mythos, nap, nature, network, normalize, nub, object, order, organization, organize, pacify, packaged house, parsonage, pattern, peace, pellucidity, penthouse, peripeteia, perspicuity, phrase structure, piece together, piecing together, pile, pit, plain English, plain speech, plain style, plainness, plan, plot, pock, predicate, prefab, prefabricated house, prefabrication, presidential palace, proportion, prototype, protuberance, put together, putting together, pyramid, qualifier, quiet, quietude, ranch house, rank, ranks, recognition, rectory, regularity, regularize, regulate, rising action, roof, routine, routinize, scheme, secondary plot, set, set up, setup, shag, shallow structure, shape, shaping, significant form, simplicity, skeleton, skyscraper, slant, slot, slot and filler, sod house, split-level, stamp, standardize, story, straightforwardness, strata, structuring, style, subject, subplot, superstructure, surface, surface structure, surface texture, switch, symmetry, syneresis, syntactic analysis, syntactic structure, syntactics, syntax, synthesis, synthesize, system, systematize, tagmeme, texture, thematic development, theme, tone, topic, tower, town house, tranquilize, tranquillity, transparency, transpicuity, turn, twist, type, unadorned style, unambiguousness, underlying structure, unequivocalness, uniformity, unite in, unmistakableness, vicarage, wale, weave, woof, word arrangement, word order