Meaning of construction in English

construction

noun

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

/kənˈstrʌk.ʃən/ us

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

/kənˈstrʌk.ʃən/

construction noun (BUILDING)

B2 [ U ]

the work of building or making something, especially buildings, bridges, etc.:

She works in construction/in the construction industry.

The bridge is a marvellous work of engineering and construction.

This website is currently under construction (= being created).

[ U ]

the particular type of structure, materials, etc. that something has:

The bridge is of lightweight construction.

B2 [ C ]

a building:

What's that concrete and metal construction over there?

Synonyms

building
edifice formal
erection (BUILDING)
structure  (BUILDING)

More examples

Falling house prices are illustrative of the crisis facing the construction industry.
The starting date for the construction work is June 23.
The construction of the tunnel is a large and complex undertaking.
He called for checks to discover whether corrupt officials are being bribed to connive in shoddy construction.
How are we going to pay for the construction work?

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Building: construction work & workers

See more results »

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Frames & structures

Buildings in general

Want to learn more?

Improve your vocabulary with English Vocabulary in Use from Cambridge.
Learn the words you need to communicate with confidence.

construction noun (LANGUAGE)

B2 [ C ] language specialized

the way in which the words in a sentence or phrase are arranged:

The writer has used several complex grammatical constructions.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistic terms & linguistic style

See more results »

put a construction on something formal

to understand something in a particular way:

How can they put such a damning construction on a perfectly innocent phrase?

to understand something as having a particular meaning, especially other people's actions and statements:

I don't want them to put the wrong construction on my actions.

See

construe formal

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Judgments and analyses

See more results »

(Definition of construction from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

construction | American Dictionary

construction

noun

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

/kənˈstrʌk·ʃən/

[ U ]

the act or result of putting different things together:

A new hotel is now under construction (= being built).

[ C ] fml

your understanding of the meaning of something in a particular way:

The construction you are putting on my client’s statement is unfair.

(Definition of construction from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

construction | Business English

construction

noun

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

/kənˈstrʌkʃən/ us

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

[ U ]

the process or business of building large objects such as buildings, roads, bridges, etc.:

Employment in construction increased by 12,000.

a construction site/project/worker 29-year-old Jose has a well-paid job at a downtown construction site.

under construction In February, there were 15% fewer homes under construction than in the corresponding month of last year.

a construction company/firm/group

the construction industry/sector

[ U ] PRODUCTION

the activity of putting the different parts of something together in order to make it:

The chemical is found in materials used in the construction of travel trailers.

under construction They now have four satellites under construction.

the construction of an investment portfolio

[ U ]

the particular type of structure, materials, etc. that something has:

The bridge is of lightweight construction.

[ C ]

a building or other object that has been built:

The new office building was a glass and steel construction.

(Definition of construction from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of construction

construction

Each run can be taken as a record of an agent's memory constructions history.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The second par t takes up linguistic practices in relation to the social practices and gender constructions that the first par t has established.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In addition, individual lexical items are eventually related into more general constructions, as we will see later.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In other words, these personal nullsubject constructions lie at the extreme end of specificity of reference.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If we make the very conservative assumption that these three constructions are independent, we find an average category validity of 0.33 for constructions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

To examine children's use of syntactic information, two constructions in which there is a conflict between the referential and syntactic information were included.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

As the authors show, there is considerable systeminternal motivation for treating many verb-particle constructions as grammatical units.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

According to the form-based criteria of a traditional account, these constructions are not passives.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

All three constructions are treated as long distance dependencies triggered by a gap or a clitic (section 6n1).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The filler sentences made use of different kinds of syntactic constructions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Constructions also specify linking relations for combination with other constructions in their semantic structures.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

One only has to think of the well-known unnaturalness of logical ' or ' and ' if - then ' constructions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

On the other hand, the nouns in such constructions have many of them.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Minor register variation patterns are introduced by variation in equational and copula verb constructions, and by avoidance of some of the case variables.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Progress in this direction will be made once the semantics of given constructions are more carefully studied.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of construction

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.