Abuilding

//əˈbɪl.dɪŋ// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Being built or under construction, as a structure or a vessel. archaic, not-comparable

    "Heere we made a double floore in the hall where the shippe was abuilding, so that the wild men, being ignorant of our way of building, could not take any notice of our cuningnesse, which proved to our desire."

  2. 2
    Developing or arising, as a trend or an idea. archaic, not-comparable

    "This may signify much; among other things that the courtesan is creeping into social favor—even that a new code of morals is now abuilding, in which she will be the grand exemplar."

Example

More examples

"Heere we made a double floore in the hall where the shippe was abuilding, so that the wild men, being ignorant of our way of building, could not take any notice of our cuningnesse, which proved to our desire."

Etymology

From a- (“in, on”) + building (“the act or process of building”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.