Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A foundation; a substructure.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An underbuilding; a mass of building below another; a foundation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) Underbuilding; the foundation, or any preliminary structure intended to raise the lower floor or basement of a building above the natural level of the ground.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun architecture underbuilding; the foundation, or any preliminary structure intended to raise the lower floor or basement of a building above the natural level of the ground

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin substrūctiō, substrūctiōn-, from substrūctus, past participle of substruere, to build beneath : sub-, sub- + struere, to build, pile up; see ster- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin substructio, from substruere, substructum, to build beneath; sub under + struere to build.

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Examples

  • Persepolis, raised, for the substruction of their palaces, an immense platform of massive masonry, which is one of the most wonderful monuments of the world's ancient builders.

    General History for Colleges and High Schools Philip Van Ness Myers

  • The plan of the substruction of this new library, as shewn on the ground-plan of Clairvaux given by Viollet Le Duc [240], is exactly the same as that of Citeaux (fig. 33) but on a larger scale.

    The Care of Books John Willis Clark 1871

  • The fire rests upon the broad hearth; the hearth rests upon a great substruction of stone, and the substruction rests upon the cellar.

    Backlog Studies Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • The fire rests upon the broad hearth; the hearth rests upon a great substruction of stone, and the substruction rests upon the cellar.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • This may indeed be seriously avowed by some, who are so walled up in old prejudice and presumption that they really have no look out; who, because a thing has been long established, mistake its artificial substruction of crumbling materials for the natural rock; and it will be pretended by others, who think the bravado of asserting the impossibility of the overthrow may be a good policy for deterring the attempt.

    An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance John Foster 1806

  • "The building," he says, [637] "was constructed of sun-dried bricks, forming four walls, the base of which rested upon a substruction of solid stone-work.

    History of Phoenicia George Rawlinson 1857

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