building (bilding)

[Early mod. E. also bilding, In law, anything erected by art, and fixed upon or in the soil, composed of different pieces connected together, and designed for permanent use in the position in which it is so fixed, is a building. Edw. Livings ton. Thus, a pole fixed in the earth is not a building, but a fence or a wall is. Seest thou these great buildings? Mark xiii. 2. 31. A flock or number: said of rooks. Master Simon.. told me that according to the most ancient and approved treatise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. "In the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or swal lows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." Irving , Sketch-Book, p. 259. Building society, a joint-stock benefit society, for the purpose of raising by periodical subscriptions a fund to a ist members in building or purchasing, the property being mortgaged to the society till the amount advanced is fully repaid with interest. building-block (bil'ding-blok), n. 1. One of. the temporary supports or blocks on which a ship's keel rests while the ship is building. It is a block of timber which can be removed when the key-pieces or templets are knocked away. 2. One of a set of blocks with which children imitate the construction of buildings.