Struc·ture n.
 1. The act of building; the practice of erecting buildings; construction. [R.]
 His son builds on, and never is content
 Till the last farthing is in structure spent.   --J. Dryden, Jr.
 2. Manner of building; form; make; construction.
    Want of insight into the structure and constitution of the terraqueous globe.   --Woodward.
 3. Arrangement of parts, of organs, or of constituent particles, in a substance or body; as, the structure of a rock or a mineral; the structure of a sentence.
    It [basalt] has often a prismatic structure.   --Dana.
 4. Biol. Manner of organization; the arrangement of the different tissues or parts of animal and vegetable organisms; as, organic structure, or the structure of animals and plants; cellular structure.
 5. That which is built; a building; esp., a building of some size or magnificence; an edifice.
    There stands a structure of majestic frame.   --Pope.
 Columnar structure. See under Columnar.

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 Co·lum·nar a.  Formed in columns; having the form of a column or columns; like the shaft of a column.
 Columnar epithelium Anat., epithelium in which the cells are prismatic in form, and set upright on the surface they cover.
 Columnar structure Geol., a structure consisting of more or less regular columns, usually six-sided, but sometimes with eight or more sides. The columns are often fractured transversely, with a cup joint, showing a concave surface above. This structure is characteristic of certain igneous rocks, as basalt, and is due to contraction in cooling.

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