infrastructure

American  

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

noun

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

• infrastructural adjective

Etymology

Origin of infrastructure

First recorded in 1925–30; infra + structure

Example Sentences

President Joe Biden strengthened Buy America rules External link by signing them into law as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill.

From Barron's

The rapid timetable is designed to constrict the amount of time the two parties have to build a campaigning infrastructure in the constituency.

From BBC

Lebanon's electricity sector has cost Lebanon more than $40 billion since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war, and successive governments have failed to reduce losses or repair crumbling infrastructure.

From Barron's

Van Eck is enthusiastic about semiconductors, cloud platforms, data-center infrastructure plays and other “enablers of compute.”

From MarketWatch

It said its investment reflects its “confidence in CoreWeave’s business, team and growth strategy as a cloud platform built on Nvidia infrastructure.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• base
• framework