edifying

American  

[ed-uh-fahy-ing] / ˈɛd əˌfaɪ ɪŋ /

adjective

1. instructive or beneficial, especially morally or spiritually; uplifting.

   We had our meals together, during which we listened to reading from an edifying children's book.

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Other Word Forms

• edifyingly adverb
• unedifying adjective

Etymology

Origin of edifying

edify + -ing ²

Example Sentences

Few things are less edifying than a mob that has decided to rectify a great wrong in the name of justice and purity.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 23, 2026

But it’s an edifying experience, hurtling forward with only the mighty light of intrepid wonder to guide us.

From Salon • Jan. 25, 2025

The power of absence and refusal is perhaps more edifying in literature — see “The Stranger,” “The Quiet Man,” the brick-wall calm of I-would-prefer-not-to Bartleby — than in real life.

From New York Times • Mar. 9, 2024

“It was such an edifying moment for us both to see the scope of a lifetime of work dedicated to investigating these sets of questions that are formal, conceptual, cultural and material.”

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 29, 2023

“I’ll sit over here with Nell, and if you come across any particularly edifying moral precepts you think would do me good, read them aloud.”

From "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson