Etymology and application of the term
The word “architecture” comes from the Latin architectura and that from Greek ?????????? (architekton), “master builder”, from the combination of ????- (archi-), “chief” or “leader” and ?????? (tekton), 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 mathematics or of abstract things such as music, 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 components of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.