in the general sense of the term, an undertaker of works of building. With reference to the operations of civil architecture particularly, the builder stands between the proprietor and architect on the one hand, and the artizan, merchant, and manufacturer on the other; he engages to the first to carry a certain proposed work into execution, as he may be directed by the second, and saves to both of them the trouble and responsibility of procuring materials and employing workmen.

The builder's emolument arises from an improved price, or charges bearing an advance on the prime cost, to remunerate him for the use of his capital, and his own personal application or labour. A builder has the power also of deriving an advantage from the division of labour, by employing artizans in those operations only which habit enables them to execute with the greatest facility.

The builder contracts to do certain specified works for a certain total sum of money, the amount of which he determines by a previous estimate; or to do prescribed operations at so much for a certain fixed quantity of every sort involved, per yard, per rod, per foot, and so on, the amount to be ascertained, when they are completed, by measurement; or he executes works according to instructions or specifications, leaving the charges to be determined according to the usual and accustomed rates, on the quantities ascertained by admeasurement. In the two former cases he is said to work by contract, and in the last by measure and value. For jobbing, in repairs and alterations, a day account is kept; that is, a record of the time workmen are employed, and of the materials used, in performing certain operations. This is made out with an advance of so much per cent. on the prime cost, or wages of the workmen and selling prices of the unwrought materials, for the builder's profit or remuneration, as before stated.

A builder should be theoretically acquainted with the principles of construction, and practically conversant with the details of all the mechanic arts used in building; as well to be enabled to carry on his business with advantage to his own interest, as to the proper execution of the works he may undertake. He should be qualified to ascertain with the utmost minuteness, from the drawings of a design, and the specification of the manner in which, and matter of which, it is to be carried into execution, the quantity of labour, and materials of every kind and description, and the exact value of them all. In this is involved the necessity of being well acquainted with the market prices of raw and manufactured articles to a very great extent, and a matured judgment of the quantity of labour required, or how much time a workman will take to produce a certain result. These things, however, which involve the making of estimates on which to make contracts, in the practice of this country are generally referred to a surveyor or measurer, because of the general ignorance and incompetence of builders, or because of the greater aptitude of the latter, in consequence of their attention being solely occupied by such things.