build-out

noun

ˈbild-ˌau̇t 

variants or less commonly buildout

plural build-outs also buildouts

1

a

: work done to make a structure or system ready for use or to bring a construction or development project to a completed state

When the build-out of the campus is complete, as many as 7,500 students will attend class there.

—Janis L. Magin

b

: work done to expand a system (such as a telecommunications system)

The buildout of new infrastructure for digital cellular telephony is at such an early stage that it's impossible to predict what the performance of some of the systems will be.

—Brian C. Fenton

c

: a project or process involving such work

Of course, the Chinese are traveling and spending more in their own country too, in part because of a gigantic infrastructure build-out; China will have constructed more high-speed-rail capacity by the end of the decade than is currently operating in the rest of the world, some 10,000 miles' (16,000 km) worth.

—Bill Saporito

2

: a state in which an area has been fully developed

At build-out, the community is planned to include retail, restaurant and office space, a hotel, urban-style and loft apartments, townhomes, and condominiums.

—The Flower Mound (Texas) Leader

Examples of build-out in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Amazon highlights its use of Shipment Zero to reduce emissions from package deliveries and its ongoing build-out of an electric delivery fleet. —Monica Sanders, Forbes.com, 17 Apr. 2025

Industry leaders say the build-out of data centers is driven by consumer demands and note that such facilities have made computing far more efficient. —Alex Brown, Baltimore Sun, 15 Apr. 2025

Much of the infrastructure build-out undertaken by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the organization that operates Texas’s grid, is concerned with sending more energy to far West Texas for things like data centers and oil and gas production. —Matthew Adams, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Apr. 2025

At full build-out, the center would consume 600 to 800 megawatts, another Diode representative confirmed at the hearing. —Rose Evans, Idaho Statesman, 7 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1955, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for build-out

• about
• bailout
• blackout
• blowout
• breakout
• burnout
• buyout
• checkout
• closeout
• cutout
• devout
• dropout