Structure

//ˈstɹʌkt͡ʃɚ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A cohesive whole built up of distinct parts. countable, uncountable

    "The birds had built an amazing structure out of sticks and various discarded items."

  2. 2
    a thing constructed; a complex entity constructed of many parts wordnet
  3. 3
    The underlying shape of a solid. countable, uncountable

    "He studied the structure of her face."

  4. 4
    the manner of construction of something and the arrangement of its parts wordnet
  5. 5
    The overall form or organization of something. countable, uncountable

    "The structure of a sentence."

Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    a particular complex anatomical part of a living thing and its construction and arrangement wordnet
  2. 7
    A set of rules defining behaviour. countable, uncountable

    "For some, the structure of school life was oppressive."

  3. 8
    the complex composition of knowledge as elements and their combinations wordnet
  4. 9
    Several pieces of data treated as a unit. countable, uncountable

    "This structure contains both date and timezone information."

  5. 10
    the people in a society considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships wordnet
  6. 11
    Underwater terrain or objects (such as a dead tree or a submerged car) that tend to attract fish uncountable

    "There's lots of structure to be fished along the west shore of the lake; the impoundment submerged a town there when it was built."

  7. 12
    A body, such as a political party, with a cohesive purpose or outlook. countable, uncountable

    "The South African leader went off to consult with the structures."

  8. 13
    A set along with a collection of finitary functions and relations. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To give structure to; to arrange. transitive

    "I'm trying to structure my time better so I'm not always late."

  2. 2
    give a structure to wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
formationactionadobe houseaesthetic formanagnorisisanatomical structure

Example

More examples

"In English, the usual sentence structure is Subject - Verb - Object/Complement."

Etymology

From Middle French structure, from Latin structūra (“a fitting together, adjustment, building, erection, a building, edifice, structure”), from struere, past participle structus (“pile up, arrange, assemble, build”). Compare construct, instruct, destroy, etc.

Related phrases

Lewis structureWeaire-Phelan structureaccessory gonadal structurealgebraic structureball-and-pillow structureband structurebone structurecapital structurechemical structurecontrol structuredata structuredata-structured coupling

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