BUILDING MATERIAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does building material mean? 

• BUILDING MATERIAL (noun)
  The noun BUILDING MATERIAL has 1 sense:

1. material used for constructing buildings

  Familiarity information: BUILDING MATERIAL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BUILDING MATERIAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Material used for constructing buildings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("building material" is a kind of...):

artefact; artifact (a man-made object taken as a whole)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "building material"):

insulant; insulation (insulating material that reduces or prevents the transmission of heat or sound or electricity)

wattle and daub (building material consisting of interwoven rods and twigs covered with clay)

sticks and stone (a general term for building materials)

staff (building material consisting of plaster and hair; used to cover external surfaces of temporary structure (as at an exposition) or for decoration)

siding (material applied to the outside of a building to make it weatherproof)

shake; shingle (building material used as siding or roofing)

roofing material (building material used in constructing roofs)

mortar (used as a bond in masonry or for covering a wall)

lumber; timber (the wood of trees cut and prepared for use as building material)

lath and plaster (a building material consisting of thin strips of wood that provide a foundation for a coat of plaster)

brick (rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material)

gunite (a mixture of cement and sand and water that is sprayed on a surface under pneumatic pressure)

flooring (building material used in laying floors)

fencing; fencing material (material for building fences)

covering material (a material used by builders to cover surfaces)

concrete (a strong hard building material composed of sand and gravel and cement and water)

cement (a building material that is a powder made of a mixture of calcined limestone and clay; used with water and sand or gravel to make concrete and mortar)

bricks and mortar (building material consisting of bricks laid with mortar between them)

stone (building material consisting of a piece of rock hewn in a definite shape for a special purpose)

building block (a block of material used in construction work)

 Context examples 

To address this properly we have to understand the thermal properties of the building material.

(Visualising heat flow in bamboo could help design more energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings, University of Cambridge)