Other forms: built, builds
To build is to make something by putting parts together — a house, a wall, a bridge, a model. It is irregular: build, built, built.
It stretches easily to things that are not physical: build a business, build confidence, build a case, build a relationship. In every one the idea is the same, that the thing is assembled over time and can be assembled badly. Note build up, meaning to increase gradually, and built-up, describing an area covered with buildings, which appears on every British road sign about speed limits. As a noun, a person's build is their body shape, and in software a build is one compiled version.
1verbbuildTo make something by putting parts together.
“They built the extension themselves over two summers.”
synonyms: construct, erect, put up
2verbdevelopTo develop something gradually.
“It took years to build that reputation.”
3nounshapeThe shape and size of somebody's body.
“He is of medium height and slight build.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
build is a way of making.
Also accepted in games: construct
Old English byldan came from bold, a dwelling — the same root that gives Proto-Germanic words for a house across northern Europe. To build was to make a home before it was to make anything, which is why building and dwelling are so tangled in the older senses.
Middle English
bylden
English, today
build
Built from
From Middle English bylden. From Middle English bilden, bulden, bylden, from Old English byldan and bytlan, bytlian (“to build”), from Proto-West Germanic buþlijan (“to build”), from Proto-Germanic buþlą, bōþlą (“house, dwelling, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰuH- (“to become, grow, thrive, be, live, dwell”). Related to Old English botl (“building, house”). More at bottle#Etymology_2. bilden.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA