the.com/construct
The polite word for 'made-up but we agreed to pretend otherwise.'
means To build something — whether a bridge or an idea — by deliberately putting its parts together.
from From Latin construere, 'to heap up together' — com- ('together') plus struere ('to pile, build'), the same struere that gives us 'structure.' So a construct is literally a thing stacked into being, a pile with a purpose — which fits nicely when the 'thing' is a social fiction everyone agreed to stop questioning.
- origin
- from Latin construere, to pile up together
- social science favorite
- gender, race, money all called constructs
- not fake
- constructed still means real in effect
- psychology use
- intelligence is a construct we measure indirectly