1. A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings: "in deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, 'virtual texts' constructed by readers in their search for meaning” ( Rebecca goldstein).

1. a philosophical theory of textual criticism; a form of critical analysis
2. the destroying or taking apart of an object; disassembly.

1. A philosophical theory of criticism (usually of literature or film) that seeks to expose deep-seated contradictions in a work by delving below its surface meaning. this method questions the ability of language to represent a fixed reality, and proposes that a text has no stable meaning because words only refer to other words, that metaphysical or ethnocentric assumptions about the meaning of words must be questioned, and words may be redefined in new contexts and new, equally valid and even contradictory meanings may be found. such new interpretations may be based on the philosophical, political, or social implications of the words of a text, rather than solely on attempts to determine the author's intentions.
2. the process of criticising or interpreting a text by the method of deconstruction{1}.

1. the undoing of what has been constructed or done.

1. a philosophical theory of criticism (usually of literature or film) that seeks to expose deep-seated contradictions in a work by delving below its surface meaning