[skyscraper]

I refuse to be defined this way! (j/k)

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the organization that does most scholarly work on skyscrapers and among other things defines what counts as a skyscraper, has a good definition of skyscrapers. they say a building is a skyscraper if because if its height has to alter its engineering systems from "conventional" building. in other words, because a building is over 6 or so stories it has to include elevators, then it is a skyscraper. but if it has to include elevators because of handicap accessibility requirements and not building height, then it is not a skyscraper. if because it is too tall to build with masonry and has to be built with some other structural system such as a steel frame, then it is considered by them to be a skyscraper. but if it is built with a steel frame for some other reason than height, then it is not a skyscraper.
I like this definition because it doesn't arbitrarily include some height cutoff, that if it were a foot shorter it wouldn't be a skyscraper. it has to do with the engineering systems to define the building, which is very different than traditional means such as function of the building. many different building types (office, residential, hotels etc) can all still be skyscrapers, but if you use a function-based definition then only a church can be a church, for example.