Megablock

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A massive block of apartments or a large housing complex built as a single unit
2. An enormous residential building or cluster of flats constructed together as one structure
3. A very large city block, often containing many dwellings grouped into one development

Etymology: "Megablock" is a plain compound, built from the prefix "mega-" joined to "block." The prefix comes from Greek "megas," meaning "great" or "large," and has long been used in English to signal enormous scale, as in "megaphone" or "megabyte." Attaching it to "block" produces a word for a very large building block or a very large housing complex, the sort of structure made of many units stacked together. Because the word is a straightforward combination of two familiar parts, its meaning follows directly from them: a large block, whether of flats, of city streets, or of another grouping of buildings. Its history is simply that of its components put together in English.