edify

• ædify (archaic)

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛdɪfaɪ/

edify (third-person singular simple present edifies, present participle edifying, simple past and past participle edified)

1. (now rare) To build, construct.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book III, canto I:

     That Castle was most goodly edifyde, / And plaste for pleasure nigh that forrest syde […]

2. (transitive) To instruct or improve morally or intellectually.
   • Gibbon

     It does not appear probable that our dispute [about miracles] would either edify or enlighten the public.

   • 1813, The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, Vol. VI, page 455

     That they ought to edify one another by maintaining and promoting the knowledge of truth.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

• edification
• edificator
• edifice
• edifier
• edifying

• deify