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edify

UK/ˈɛdɪfaɪ/US/ˈɛdɪfaɪ/
verbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,395 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: edifying, edified

To edify is to improve somebody morally or intellectually. An edifying experience, hardly edifying, edify the young.

It is now used mostly in the negative and with a smile, since not an edifying spectacle is how anybody describes a public row. The Latin means to build, so edifying is building somebody up.

Definitions of edify

  1. 1verbedifyTo improve somebody morally or intellectually.C2

    “The documentary aims to edify as well as entertain its viewers.”

edify is a improving.

Where it comes from

Latin aedificare means to build, from aedes, a dwelling, plus facere, to make.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *dʰeh₁-

  2. Latin

    aedificare — build

  3. Old French

    edifier — to build, to edify

  4. English, today

    edify

From Old French edifier (“to build, to edify”), from Latin aedificare (“build”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

edify in the wild

  • The goal was to encourage families, and therefore make it hospitable for women who could edify and purify the frontier.

    Last Best West

  • Nonetheless, they were intended to edify rather than deceive the reader.

    Acts of the Martyrs

  • Consider the example of illuminate: it originally meant "to light up" something dim or dark, but has evolved to mean "to clarify", or "to edify".

    Metaphorical extension

  • In view of that, he wrote to "edify their understanding with etymology".

    John Marchesinus

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the aedificare family

edificeedify

edify — used about once every 54,060 pages · #14,395 · point at the bar for the others