edifice
Americannoun
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a building, especially one of large size or imposing appearance.
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any large, complex system or organization.
noun
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a building, esp a large or imposing one
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a complex or elaborate institution or organization
Synonym Usage
See building.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of edifice
1350–1400; Middle English < Anglo-French, Middle French < Latin aedificium, equivalent to aedific ( āre ) to build ( see edify) + -ium -ium
Explanation
Edifice means a building, but it doesn't mean just any building. To merit being called an edifice, a building must be important. A small but elegant temple can be an edifice, and so can a towering sky scraper. The meaning of edifice has expanded to include a system of ideas — when it is complicated enough to be considered to have walls and a roof, then it is an edifice. You could say that basic facts of addition and subtraction are the foundation on which the edifice of higher math rests.
Vocabulary lists containing edifice
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The threat to the hotel has prompted a Tunisian conservation group, Edifices et Memoires, to campaign for its preservation, highlighting its architectural pedigree.
From BBC • Apr. 9, 2019
Edifices of counterpoint materialize around her; verses stretch and detour toward incantations.
From New York Times • Dec. 9, 2015
Take such a book as Letarouilly's Edifices de Rome Moderne.
From The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 02, February 1895. Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy by Various
I shouldn't wonder," said a third, "if he were one of the new messengers at the Office of Popular Edifices.
From Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes; a satire by Jenkins, Edward
All other Arts of perpetuating our Ideas continue but a short Time: Statues can last but a few Thousands of Years, Edifices fewer, and Colours still fewer than Edifices.
From The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Addison, Joseph
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
