Word.ws English Dictionary

Operative Masonry

UK/ˈɒpərətɪv ˈmeɪsənri/US/ˈɑpərətɪv ˈmeɪsənri/

Operative Masonry proper noun: practical masonry, i.e. construction with stone and other materials, understood as a coherent and ancient system contrasted with Speculative Masonry or Freemasonry.

Proper noun

Operative Masonry

  1. (archaic) Practical masonry, i.e. construction with stone and other materials, understood as a coherent and ancient system contrasted with Speculative Masonry or Freemasonry.
    • Coordinate term: Speculative Masonry
    • But you and I, my brother, are taught that Operative Masonry is but the outward form, the type, the model of speculative Masonry; and that King Solomon’s Temple, with all its particulars, was the antitype of the grand world-wide system which we call Freemasonry.1878 February 16, Rob Morris, “The Holy Land and the Temple”, in The Freemason’s Chronicle, volume 7, number 164, page 116

Questions about Operative Masonry

What does Operative Masonry mean?
Operative Masonry means practical masonry, i.e. construction with stone and other materials, understood as a coherent and ancient system contrasted with Speculative Masonry or Freemasonry.
What part of speech is Operative Masonry?
Operative Masonry is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Operative Masonry?
Operative Masonry is pronounced /ˈɑpərətɪv ˈmeɪsənri/ (US).

Words near Operative Masonry in the dictionary

  1. operatist
  2. operatists
  3. operative
  4. operative clause
  5. operative clauses
  6. Operative Masonry
  7. operative word
  8. operative words
  9. operatively
  10. operativeness
  11. operativenesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Operative Masonry (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Operative Masonry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/operative_masonry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.