scaffolding

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A scaffold or system of scaffolds.
• noun Materials used for constructing scaffolds.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In tobacco-growing, the hanging of the freshly cut plant upon a structure of poles or rails variously supported to wilt before housing: much practised in the heavy export and white Burley districts.
• noun A frame or structure for temporary support in an elevated place; in building, a temporary combination of timberwork consisting of upright poles and horizontal pieces, on which are laid boards for supporting the builders when carrying up the different stages or floors of a building, or plasterers when executing their work in the interior of houses. The scaffolding is struck or removed as soon as it has answered its purpose. See cut under putlog.
• noun Materials for scaffolds.
• noun Figuratively, any sustaining part; a frame or framework, as the skeleton; especially, in embryology, a temporary formation of hard parts to be replaced by or modified into a permanent structure: as, the scaffolding of an embryonic skull.
• noun In metallurgy, the formation of a scaffold; an engorgement. See scaffold, 7.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A scaffold; a supporting framework.
• noun Materials for building scaffolds.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A temporary modular system of tubes forming a framework used to support people and material in the construction or repair of buildings and other large structures.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a system of scaffolds