construct

Construct is a term used as both a verb and a noun, with meanings centered on building, forming, or devising. The word comes from Latin construere, meaning to pile up or assemble. As a verb, to construct means to place together parts to form a whole, to build, or to devise a plan or theory. As a noun, a construct can be something that has been built or put together, or an idea or concept formed through mental effort.

In philosophy and social sciences, a social construct refers to a concept whose perceived reality depends on collective human agreement rather than an inherent nature, such as gender roles, social norms, or money. In mathematics and logic, a construct can denote an object defined by explicit construction, as in constructive proofs where existence is demonstrated by constructing an example rather than by nonconstructive arguments.

In computing and programming, construct often appears in two related senses. A constructor is a special method or routine that creates and initializes an object or data structure. Language constructs refer to fundamental features provided by a programming language, such as loops, conditionals, or data types, used to build a program.

Constructs also appear in other domains, including architecture, engineering, and linguistics, where the term broadly denotes something formed by combining parts according to a plan. See also construction, constructive, social construct, and constructibility.