building

Etymology

It is formed from English build + -ing.^[2][3][4][5] Middle English bilding, also byldinge, was the verbal noun of bilden (“to build”).^[4][6] Old English had a similar noun, bytlung, from bytlian (“to build”).^[2] Build is from Old English byldan (“to construct a house”), from bold (“house, dwelling”),^[3][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *buþlam, built on *bū- (“to dwell”).^[7][8] Etymonline traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *bheue- (“to be, exist, grow”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thing that has been built, a structure: about 1325, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (composed about 1300).^[2] Etymonline dates it to about 1300,^[3] and Merriam-Webster to the 13th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense "the action of building" follows in the late 14th century, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[2][3] From the late 14th to the mid-18th century the word could also mean the form or structure of something, the sense now carried by the noun build, which is first recorded in the 1660s.^[2][3] From the 15th century a building of rooks was a group of them or a rookery, a rare use.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "a fabrick; an edifice".^[9] Building block is recorded from 1846, first for a child's toy block.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – a thing that has been built, a structure.^[2][3]
• before 1382 – the action of constructing.^[2][3]
• before 1387 – the form or structure of something (obsolete by 1748).^[2]
• before 1450 – a company of rooks; a rookery.^[2][5]
• 1597 – adjective, that builds.^[2]
• 1846 – building block, a child's toy block.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A structure with walls and a roof, such as a house, school or factory, made to stand in one place: The library is the oldest building in town.^[10][4][2]
2. The act, business or art of constructing houses, ships and other structures.^[10][2]
3. (rare) A group of rooks; a rookery.^[2][5]

Word family

• buildingless
• abuilding
• bodybuilding
• buildering
• homebuilding
• outbuilding
• shipbuilding

Related words

• build
• bower
• booth

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins