Edifice

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A building; a structure; an architectural fabric, especially a large and spectacular one.
  2. 2
    a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place wordnet
  3. 3
    An abstract structure, such as a school of thought, an argument, a theoretical position, etc.

    "The real difficulty was moral, not intellectual. Was the whole edifice of Ptolemy to be destroyed?"

Synonyms

All synonyms
buildingadobe housearchitecturebuildingcasacliff dwelling

Example

More examples

"The new edifice of the theatre looks very splendid."

Etymology

From Middle English edifice, from Old French edifice, a classical borrowing of Latin aedificium (“building”), derived from aedificāre (“to build, establish”) (whence also English edify).

Related phrases

edifice complex

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.