architecting

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 12:51:41PM -0500, Wendalyn Nichols wrote:
> Anyone else run across this verb? Here's a quote from the description of a
> job posted by an investment firm:
>
> "Members of the Strategic Growth department are responsible for
> architecting and executing strategies to identify and recruit world-class
> talent in a variety of both technical and non-technical fields..."

As others have pointed out, this is originally in the software
industry as a fancy synonym for 'design'; the OED draft entry
has examples to the mid-1970s. We now have increasing number of
examples in a broader scope, but still in the general sense
'to design' or 'to plan'.

Best,

Jesse
OED