Etymology and application of the term, Architecture

Etymology and application of the term, Architecture

The word "architecture" comes from the Latin, "architectura" and ultimately from Greek, "arkitekton", αρχιτεκτων, an architect, or more precisely "master builder", from the combination of αρχι a "chief" or "leader" and τεκτων, a "builder" or "carpenter.

While the primary application of the word "architecture" pertains to the built environment, by extension, the term has come to denote the art and discipline of creating an actual, or inferring an implied or apparent plan of any complex object or system. The term can be used to connote the implied architecture of abstract things such as music or mathematics, the apparent architecture of natural things, such as geological formations or the structure of biological cells, or explicitly planned architectures of human-made things such as software, computers, enterprises, and databases, in addition to buildings. In every usage, an architecture may be seen as a subjective mapping from a human perspective (that of the user in the case of abstract or physical artifacts) to the elements or component of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.

Reference: reference.com