infrastructure

American  

[in-fruh-struhk-cher] / ˈɪn frəˌstrʌk tʃər /

noun

• infrastructures
  plural

1. the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or area, as transportation and communication systems, power plants, and schools.

   Investments in infrastructure helped the U.S. economy recover from the Great Depression.

2. the basic, underlying framework or features of a system or organization.

   Over the years, as the incidence of cancer increased, the infrastructure of the hospital was developed to accommodate the new cases.

   Synonyms:

   support, foundation, basis

3. the military installations of a country.

   We could do much with just a fraction of the billions spent to maintain our robust overseas infrastructure.

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infrastructure British  

/ ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌktʃə /

noun

1. the basic structure of an organization, system, etc

2. the stock of fixed capital equipment in a country, including factories, roads, schools, etc, considered as a determinant of economic growth

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• infrastructural
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• infrastructures
  plural

Etymology

Origin of infrastructure

First recorded in 1925–30; infra + structure

Explanation

The infrastructure is the basic foundation or underlying framework of an organization or system. In your house, the infrastructure is the system of beams, weight-bearing walls and the foundation that keeps it standing. Infrastructure often refers to the equipment and structures required by the military or by a country or region. Roads, bridges, and school buildings are part of our nation's infrastructure, and are necessary for the continued growth of our communities. This word was formed as a compound in English, using the prefix infra- "below, underneath."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

infrastructure infrastructures

He noted that Dell has greater exposure to large-scale orders for AI servers, while HPE has strength from its broad networking and enterprise infrastructure offerings.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026

Yee also expects Kee Ming and Gamuda to benefit from continued infrastructure investment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

Micron stock rises as Oracle’s cloud infrastructure sales growth boosts the AI trade.

From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026

Its most tangible achievement remains the New Development Bank - which has approved billions of dollars in infrastructure and development projects - many of them in countries of the global south.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

A contractor by trade, he focused on commercial infrastructure projects, like plumbing and heating; he was a Republican, like most of the legislators, but a moderate one.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

By contrast stablecoins move through proprietary, fragmented infrastructures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 25, 2026

Even if these infrastructures are not directly hit—Tehran is a city of 14 million people in a densely populated urban environment.

From Slate ● Mar. 3, 2026

"When core infrastructures like cloud, AI or platforms are controlled from outside Europe, so are the rules, the data and ultimately the leverage."

From Barron's ● Feb. 5, 2026

"The proposed decentralized latency-aware peer-selection mechanism can serve as a foundation for future blockchain platforms that support real-time, mission-critical IoT services, ultimately enabling more secure, responsive, and trustworthy digital infrastructures," explains Dr. Nguyen.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 22, 2026

Some information technology experts warned that computers would not be able to distinguish the correct meaning of 00, resulting in widespread failure of vital infrastructures.

From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• base
• framework