Other forms: structures, structured, structuring
The structure of something is the way its parts are arranged and hold together. The structure of the argument, a rigid structure, change the structure.
It works for buildings, organisations, sentences, molecules and stories alike. A structure is also a building or construction in its own right: a listed structure, a wooden structure. As a verb, to structure something is to organise it deliberately: a well-structured essay. Note structural, meaning to do with the load-bearing parts — structural damage is serious and cosmetic damage is not.
1nounstructureThe way the parts of something are arranged.
“The structure of the argument is sound and the facts are not.”
2nounbuildingA building or construction.
“The structure has been there since about 1750.”
3verborganiseTo organise something deliberately.
“She structured the whole course around one question.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
structure is an arrangement of parts.
Latin structura comes from struere, to build or pile up — the same verb behind construct, destroy and instruct. To instruct somebody is literally to build something into them.
Latin
structūra — a fitting together, adjustment, building, erection, a building, edifice, structure
Middle French
structure
English, today
structure
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA