"... Anything constructed, esp. by the mind; hence spec., a concept specially devised to be part of a theory."


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Note added at 13 mins (2004-02-26 19:03:11 GMT)
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[\"spec.\" = \"specifically]

That\'s the Oxford English Dictionary definition, and a reasonably good one.

Although your context seems to be a scientific one, in which case this other usage might be more appropriate :

\"Mathematics. A configuration, outline, or surface.\"

Examples of use:

1902 Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 541/1 A monogenic algebraic construct (or configuration, or surface)... The notion of monogenic construct is wider than that of a monogenic function.

1965 Math. in Biol. & Med; (Med. Res. Council) iii. 114 A readily visualizable geometrical construct such as the n-dimensional football.


The two seem to share the quality of being \"anything constructed\", however.

In my own field (Art History), major \"constructs\" include such \"periodisations\" as \"Middle Ages\", \"Renaissance\" and \"styles\" as \"Romanesque\" and \"Gothic\" --these are not \"real\" historical entities, but rather catagories or constructs --\"short cuts\", really-- created by art historians to help them make sense out of what it is that they are working with.

This convenience cuts both ways, however, and we not infrequently become \"prisoners of our own constructs\".

In the context of your passage --as best i can make out-- what\'s being sought is how to \"validating a measure\" of some scientific instrument by recognising what, in fact, it is measuring.

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Note added at 14 mins (2004-02-26 19:05:07 GMT)
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\"...to \'validate a measure\' \" obviously.

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Note added at 22 hrs 25 mins (2004-02-27 17:15:26 GMT)
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In view of hira\'s comment below, I\'m adding the earliest definitions and usages, as given by the O.E.D.

Interesting to note that the earliest uses of the word as a noun are by *linguists*, from which it passed into psychology and even philosophy (epistomology) :

1. Linguistics. A group of words forming a phrase, as distinct from a compound.

1871 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue xi. 514 \"The distinction between compounds and constructs is a delicate one.\"

1871 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue 515 \"The transition from the construct to the compound state..takes time to accomplish.\"

1956 J. Whatmough Language viii. 143 \"Every language has its own constructs (i.e. repetitive patterns of order) of free-standing, bounded units (words).\"

1963 Canadian Jrnl. Linguistics VIII. 62 \"A clause can be said to have descended the grammatical hierarchy to operate at the phrase level. Such descending units are termed `constructs\' in this model. `That he stayed up all night doing linguistics\' is called a clause construct.\"

1967 Language XLIII. 745 \"The psychological reality of linguistic constructs.\"


2. Psychol. An object of perception or thought, formed by a combination of present with past sense-impressions.

1890 C. L. Morgan Anim. Life & Intell; viii. 312 \"At the bidding of certain stimuli from without we construct that mental product which we call the object of sense. It is of these mental constructions-`constructs\' I will call them for convenience-that I have now to speak.\"

1890 C. L. Morgan Anim. Life & Intell; 317 \"What we call objects are human constructs.\"

1934 Nature 8 Sept. (Suppl.) 363/2 \"If the nature we study consists so largely of our own mental constructs, why do our many minds all construct one and the same Nature? Why, in brief, do we all see the same sun, moon and stars?\"

1956 A. J. Ayer et al. Revol. Philos. 30 \"Some said that natural numbers were mental constructs, meaning by this..that they had the same status as dreams and hallucinations.\"


b. gen. Anything constructed, esp. by the mind; hence spec., a concept specially devised to be part of a theory.

[...as above]