dictionary definitions for "construction"


From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:

  construction
      n 1: the act of constructing or building something; "during the
           construction we had to take a detour"; "his hobby was
           the building of boats" [syn: building]
      2: the commercial activity involved in constructing buildings;
         "their main business is home construction"; "workers in
         the building trades" [syn: building]
      3: a thing constructed; a complex construction or entity; "the
         structure consisted of a series of arches"; "she wore her
         hair in an amazing construction of whirls and ribbons"
         [syn: structure]
      4: a group of words that form a constituent of a sentence and
         are considered as a single unit; "I concluded from his
         awkward constructions that he was a foreigner" [syn:
         grammatical construction, expression] [ant:
         misconstruction]
      5: the creation of a construct; the process of combining ideas
         into a congruous object of thought [syn: {mental
         synthesis}]
      6: an interpretation of a text or action; "they put an
         unsympathetic construction on his conduct" [syn: twist]
      7: drawing a figure satisfying certain conditions as part of
         solving a problem or proving a theorem; "the assignment
         was to make a construction that could be used in proving
         the Pythagorean theorem"

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Construction \Con*struc"tion\, n. [L. constructio: cf. F.
     construction.]
     1. The process or art of constructing; the act of building;
        erection; the act of devising and forming; fabrication;
        composition.
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     2. The form or manner of building or putting together the
        parts of anything; structure; arrangement.
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              An astrolabe of peculiar construction. --Whewell.
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     3. (Gram.) The arrangement and connection of words in a
        sentence; syntactical arrangement.
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              Some particles . . . in certain constructions have
              the sense of a whole sentence contained in them.
                                                    --Locke.
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     4. The method of construing, interpreting, or explaining a
        declaration or fact; an attributed sense or meaning;
        understanding; explanation; interpretation; sense.
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              Any person . . . might, by the sort of construction
              that would be put on this act, become liable to the
              penalties of treason.                 --Hallam.
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              Strictly, the term [construction] signifies
              determining the meaning and proper effect of
              language by a consideration of the subject matter
              and attendant circumstances in connection with the
              words employed.                       --Abbott.
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              Interpretation properly precedes construction, but
              it does not go beyond the written text. --Parsons.
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     Construction of an equation (Math.), the drawing of such
        lines and figures as will represent geometrically the
        quantities in the equation, and their relations to each
        other.
  
     Construction train (Railroad), a train for transporting men
        and materials for construction or repairs.
        [1913 Webster]


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