The rapid growth in the number of terminological units, the number of inaccuracies in the translation of architectural and construction vocabulary necessitated the streamlining and comprehensive unification of terms. However, effective unification of terminology should be based on preliminary linguistic research. In this regard, the approaches and classifications of architectural and construction terms in English and Russian in a comparative aspect are studied and systematized. The consideration of the architectural thesaurus contributed to the identification of its aspects: activities, physical characteristics, style and era, materials, agents, elements and equipment. The research revealed such classifications as the name of the units of measurement of physical quantities, the name of symbols, designs with participles; classifications characterizing specific functional types of buildings, names of subject concepts, borrowed terms, which underwent significant overview during assimilation. Based on these classifications, emphasized is that the classification of architectural vocabulary is impossible without analysis, identification of information transmitted in a manner.