▪ I. construct, ppl. a. arch.
(kənˈstrʌkt)
[ad. L. construct-us, pa. pple. of construĕre: see next.]
1. pa. pple. Constructed.
| 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) I. 63 Compacte and constructe throe the heete of the sonne. 1578 Banister Hist. Man i. 19 In Children the same [Occiput] is construct of many bones. 1773 J. Ross Fratricide (MS.) iv. 333 For so immortal bodies are construct. 1867 G. Macdonald Sonnets, Concerning Jesus xi, To the few construct of harmonies. |
2. adj. in construct state, state construct, in grammar of Hebrew and other Semitic languages: the form of the substantive used when standing before another having an attributive (or genitive) relation to it, which may be translated by the nominative (or other case) followed by of, as ˈbayith house, bēyth-ĕlōˈhīm house of God.
It is distinctive of the Semitic languages that in expressing such a notion as house of God, they do not, like the Aryan languages, put God in the genitive, but, retaining this unchanged, put house in the ‘state construct’. In this form the substantive becomes accentually combined with that which follows, losing its independent stress, and undergoing various consequent changes, as loss or lightening of vowels, of inflexional consonants, etc.
| [1737 A. Schultens Institutiones 184 Regimen autem, sive statum constructum, dicunt [grammatici] copulationem illam.] 1821 M. Stuart Heb. Gram. (1831) 124 The construct state. 1830 W. T. Philipps Elem. Heb. Gr. 81 In regimen or the constructed state. 1836 tr. Hengstenberg's Christol. I. 353 The Stat. Constr. is often used where the connexion is intimate, though not made by a genitive, especially before prepositions. 1874 tr. Lange's Comm. Zech. 57 The singular occurrence of [such words] after a noun in the construct. |
▪ II. construct, v.
(kənˈstrʌkt)
[A late formation from L. construct- ppl. stem of construĕre to heap together, pile up, build, construct, f. con- together + struĕre to lay, pile, build. The present stem of the L. vb. has given construe.]
1. trans. To make or form by fitting the parts together; to frame, build, erect.
| 1663 Boyle Usefuln. Nat. Phil. (J.), Those divine attributes and prerogatives, for whose manifesting he was pleased to construct this vast fabrick. 1730–6 Bailey, Construct, to build, to frame. 1794 Sullivan View Nat. II, A sacred ship, the first that was ever constructed. 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. xiii. (1870) 139 Des Cartes..said, Give me matter and motion and I will construct you the universe. 1844 H. H. Wilson Brit. India III. 37 The Burmas..constructed stockades on either bank of the Surma river. 1863 M. Howitt F. Bremer's Greece I. i. 19 This splendid road has been lately constructed. |
b. (immaterial objects, creations of the mind, etc.)
| 1755 Johnson, Construct, to form by the mind: as, he constructed a new system. 1812 Examiner 4 May 283/2 M. Didelot has constructed a fanciful ballet. 1849 Abp. Thomson Laws Th. Introd., Before an Art of Rhetoric could be constructed. 1875 Jevons Money (1878) 10 It is easy to construct a theory of the nature of exchange and value. |
| absol. 1832 Macaulay Mirabeau, Demolition is undoubtedly a vulgar task; the highest glory of the statesman is to construct. |
2. Gram. To put together (words) in syntactical arrangement; to combine in grammatical construction. (Used chiefly of the manner.)
| 1871 Publ. School Lat. Gram. 248 Syntax is that division of Grammar which teaches how sentences are constructed. Ibid. 257 The Vocative..is attached to the Sentence, but not constructed with it. Ibid. 321 Many Adjectives above mentioned [as governing a Genitive] are also constructed with Prepositions. |
b. (See quot.)
| 1864 Alford Queen's Eng. 183 Suppose I..direct one of them to construe the sentence. He knows perfectly well what I mean.. But suppose I tell him to construct the sentence. He..ought to know, that I mean that he is to explain the construction of the sentence, to give an account of its concords and governments. |
3. Geom. The ordinary word for: To draw, delineate, or form geometrically. Also, to make the required construction or figure for (a problem in geometry, astronomy, navigation, etc.).
| 1726 tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 357 Some construct this Problem of finding the Parallax of Longitude or Latitude from the given Parallax of Altitude, more expeditiously thus. 1828 J. H. Moore Pract. Navig. 67 This case is constructed much the same as the last. 1840 Lardner Geom. 132 A rectangle whose area is equal to that of a given triangle, may be found by constructing one with the same base as the triangle and half its altitude. Ibid. 277 A method of constructing or drawing a parabola by a series of points. 1882 Minchin Unipl. Kinemat. 125 Construct round P as centre the conic whose equation..is, etc. |
b. To represent (an algebraical quantity or equation) by a geometrical construction.
| 1727–51 Chambers Cycl. s.v., The method of constructing equations is different, according to the diversity of equations. 1739 Saunderson Fluxions (1756) 44 To construct this Fluent, that is, to find some geometrical Area with which it may be compared. |
† 4. To put a specified construction or interpretation on; = construe 4 b. Obs. Sc.
| c 1610 Sir J. Melvil Mem. (1735) 84 Expressions which were constructed by the Queen of England as a Violation of their former Familiarity. 1668 Sir R. Murray in Evelyn Mem. (1857) III. 203, I..construct the design of all to be to express quaintly your kindness in desiring I may be where you are. 1676 W. Row Contn. Blair's Autobiog. xi. (1848) 361 This would be constructed by the King and others a homologating of the Protestor's petition. |
▪ III. construct, n.
(ˈkɒnstrʌkt)
[f. construct v.]
1. Linguistics. A group of words forming a phrase, as distinct from a compound. Also attrib.
| 1871 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue xi. 514 The distinction between compounds and constructs is a delicate one. Ibid. 515 The transition from the construct to the compound state..takes time to accomplish. 1956 J. Whatmough Language viii. 143 Every language has its own constructs (i.e. repetitive patterns of order) of free-standing, bounded units (words). 1963 Canadian Jrnl. Linguistics VIII. 62 A clause can be said to have descended the grammatical hierarchy to operate at the phrase level. Such descending units are termed ‘constructs’ in this model. ‘That he stayed up all night doing linguistics’ is called a clause construct. 1967 Language XLIII. 745 The psychological reality of linguistic constructs. |
2. Psychol. An object of perception or thought, formed by a combination of present with past sense-impressions.
| 1890 C. L. Morgan Anim. Life & Intell. viii. 312 At the bidding of certain stimuli from without we construct that mental product which we call the object of sense. It is of these mental constructions—‘constructs’ I will call them for convenience—that I have now to speak. Ibid. 317 What we call objects are human constructs. 1934 Nature 8 Sept. (Suppl.) 363/2 If the nature we study consists so largely of our own mental constructs, why do our many minds all construct one and the same Nature? Why, in brief, do we all see the same sun, moon and stars? 1956 A. J. Ayer et al. Revol. Philos. 30 Some said that natural numbers were mental constructs, meaning by this..that they had the same status as dreams and hallucinations. |
b. gen. Anything constructed, esp. by the mind; hence spec., a concept specially devised to be part of a theory.
| 1933 Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. Oct. 161 The American psychologist..denies that they [sc. traits] are dynamic, existential entities within the organism... Rather are they constructs in the minds of the observers. 1937 ‘C. Caudwell’ Illusion & Reality ii. 48 The poetic construct. 1951 J. R. Firth Papers in Linguistics (1957) xv. 190 The constructs or schemata of linguistics enable us to handle isolates that may be called language events. 1952 C. L. Hull Behav. System xi. 327 Note..his total lack of comprehension of the role of symbolic constructs in natural-science theory. 1956 J. H. M. Beattie in A. Pryce-Jones New Outl. Mod. Knowl. 258 The kind of structure, in the sense in which anthropologists use the term, is a construct or model, based on but not composed of the empirical data. 1959 Listener 1 Oct. 520/1 Typical examples of theoretical terms are ‘gene’ in biology, and ‘electron’ in physics: these are theoretical constructs that are not directly observable. |
3. Math. A configuration, outline, or surface.
| 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 541/1 A monogenic algebraic construct (or configuration, or surface)... The notion of monogenic construct is wider than that of a monogenic function. 1965 Math. in Biol. & Med. (Med. Res. Council) iii. 114 A readily visualizable geometrical construct such as the n-dimensional football. |