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edify

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To instruct especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To build; construct.
  • To build in or upon; cover with buildings.
  • To build up or increase the faith, morality, etc., of; impart instruction to, particularly in morals or religion.
  • To convince or persuade.
  • To benefit; favor.
  • To cause or tend to cause moral or intellectual improvement; make people wiser or better.
  • To be instructed or improved, especially morally; become wiser or better.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Archaic To build; to construct.
  • intransitive verb To instruct and improve, especially in moral and religious knowledge; to teach.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To teach or persuade.
  • intransitive verb rare To improve.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To build, construct.
  • verb transitive To instruct or improve morally or intellectually.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make understand

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English edifien, from Old French edifier, from Late Latin aedificāre, to instruct spiritually, from Latin, to build; see edifice.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin aedificare 'build'.

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