When you edify someone, you’re helping them build character. This figurative "building" is key to understanding the history of edify. This word is an evolution of the Latin verb aedificare, originally meaning "to erect a house" and later (in Late Latin) "to instruct or improve spiritually." (The word edifice, which usually refers to a building and especially to a large or massive structure, comes from the same root.) Aedificare, in turn, is based on aedes, the Latin word for "temple." Edify shares the spiritual meaning of its Late Latin root, but it is also used in general contexts to refer to the act of instructing in a way that improves the mind or character overall.
These books will both entertain and edify readers.
a family-oriented show that tried to edify the television audience as well as entertain it
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From our review: The much-in-vogue hybrid mode proves more cryptic than edifying this time around.—The New York Times, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2025 The encounter between biological and ballroom families yields the most edifying conversations in I’m Your Venus.—Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019 The much-in-vogue hybrid mode proves more cryptic than edifying this time around.—Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025 Consider it everyday activism anchored in acknowledgement, self-preservation and edifying intellectual steers.—Katie Baron, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for edify
Word History
Etymology
Middle English, from Anglo-French edifier, from Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin aedificare to instruct or improve spiritually, from Latin, to erect a house, from aedes temple, house; akin to Old English ād funeral pyre, Latin aestas summer
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