structural.

1. Relating to the underlying organization or arrangement of a system.

2. Relating to the supporting framework of a physical object.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• structural inequality
• structural change
• structural support

On the page

Structural barriers prevented qualified rural applicants from reaching the interview stage.

The recession accelerated a structural shift away from heavy industry.

An engineer inspected the structural supports before the hall reopened.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic. A structural explanation concerns enduring arrangements or relationships, not simply any large problem. It may interact with individual choices rather than replace them. Normally non-gradable in this sense; comparison requires a specific contextual scale. Derived family (not inflections): structure, structurally.