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Edify   /ˈɛdəfˌaɪ/   Listen
Edify

verb
(past & past part. edified; pres. part. edifying)
1.
Make understand.  Synonym: enlighten.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Edify" Quotes from Famous Books



... grounds; she took him at the earnest request of friends in Flekkefjord. Generally, her lodgers were spiritually minded young men, often wandering lay-preachers, who came and went, remaining a few days among the Brethren in order to exhort and edify one another. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... who rejoice Over one saved do triumph at this hour In the reborn salvation of a land So noble. [A pause. For ourselves we do protest That our commission is to heal, not harm; We come not to condemn, but reconcile; We come not to compel, but call again; We come not to destroy, but edify; Nor yet to question things already done; These are forgiven—matters of the past— And range with jetsam and with offal thrown Into the blind sea of forgetfulness. [A pause. Ye have reversed the attainder laid on us By him who sack'd ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster, when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the spirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry the Seventh himself there, with all his liege tombs about ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... much contempt of death as either Argyle or Rumbold: but his end did not, like theirs, edify pious minds. Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of the Whigs which sought for models rather among the patriots of Greece and Rome ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cannot see, for my part, why it is much better to sing "idle words" than to say them. How vapid, how senseless, is many a song one hears from a pretty mouth and a sweet voice. And in music as elsewhere, there is no middle ground: whatever does not edify—build up—pulls down. ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner

... directly from the pens of those who performed the voyages; nor can he help feeling a regret, that such persons as Byron and Cook, both of whom have given most satisfactory proofs of their possessing every literary requisite, were not permitted to edify the public as they thought good, without the officious instrumentality of an editor. These men needed no such interference, though their modesty and good sense availed them, undoubtedly, in profiting by the merely verbal corrections of friendship; and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... liberty of conscience was unexpectedly given, he gathered his congregation at Bedford, where he mostly lived and had spent most of his life. Here a new and larger meeting-house was built, and when, for the first time, he appeared there to edify, the place was so thronged that many were constrained to stay without, though the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... apologist fails in his duty to-day if he writes merely to edify the faithful. Granting that the history of the Inquisition will reveal things we never dreamed of, our prejudices must not prevent an honest facing of the facts. We ought to dread nothing more than the reproach that we are afraid of the truth. "We can understand," says Yves Le Querdec,[1] ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... my primary purpose to edify, entertain, or instruct a million women with poems, stories, and fashion-hints. Mr. Bok may think it is. He is merely the innocent victim of a harmless delusion, and he draws a salary for being deluded. To be frank and ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... announced the elder Doane, crushingly, "thar's trash in Virginny thet don't edify Kaintuck folks none by movin' ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... punishments at the close of the story—the whole "furnishing a striking lesson to posterity of the overruling hand of providence and the certainty of retribution." Clara Reeve was fifty-two years of age when she published her Gothic story, and she writes in the spirit of a maiden aunt striving to edify as well as to entertain the younger generation. When Edmund takes Fitzowen to view the fatal closet and the bones of his murdered father, he considers the scene "too solemn for a lady to be present ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... season, the touching and searching lessons of the Lenten season, the holy, inspiring joyousness of the Easter season, or the instructive admonitions of the Pentecostal season, will not attract and move and edify the ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... advised against using glosses and commentaries made by men, since that is to turn from the sun to the stars and from the spring to the cistern. This interim-Church was to have no authoritative teachers or preachers. In place of official ministry, the members were to edify one another in Christian love, with the reservation that they would welcome further illumination out of the Scriptures wherever they have made a mistake or gone wrong. All persons who confess God as Father, and Jesus Christ as sent by God, and who in the power of faith abstain from sins, may belong ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... Incarnation, at that time in charge of the novices. After the usual probation, she received the habit, and with it the name of St. Bernard, and in due time completed her first sacrifice by holy profession. She continued to edify her sisters by the example of virtues suited rather to a soul far advanced in religious perfection, than to one just touching the mysterious threshold; and, as hers was one of those gifted natures pleasing both to God and man, she ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... about the relations between both and our courts of law and private juries of matrons, produces that sensation of evasion, of dissatisfaction, of fundamental irrelevance, of shallowness, of useless disagreeableness, of total failure to edify and partial failure to interest, which is as familiar to you in the theatres as it was to me when I, too, frequented those uncomfortable buildings, and found our popular playwrights in the mind to (as ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... shine, the waters of life we shall never be called upon to leave. We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort one another and edify one another.' ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... about the place, either to drain the marsh lands or to facilitate navigation, Chauny really is an aquatic little capital like Annecy in Savoy. Naturally its citizens set a certain value on their fishing rights, and it may edify those who obstinately insist on regarding the feudal ages as ages of brute force, to know that so early as in 1175 the citizens of Chauny, by the lieutenant of the bailliage, Messire Regnault Doucet, asserted and successfully maintained before the royal representatives ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... them. Come, and sit by me." The false Fatima sat down with affected modesty: the princess then resuming her discourse, said, "My good mother, I have one thing to request, which you must not refuse me; it is to stay with me, that you may edify me with your way of living; and that I may learn from your good example how to serve God." "Princess," said the counterfeit Fatima, "I beg of you not to ask what I cannot consent to, without neglecting my prayers and devotion." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... "you are the man needed to shake the world from one end to the other; with this sign you will overthrow; with this sign you will edify; in hoc ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... possess their lands or lordships until they are so anointed. The first of these shall recover, without violence, the countries of Normandy and Aquitaine, which their predecessors had lost. This king shall be great amongst kings, and it will be he who shall re-edify many churches in the Holy Land, and drive all the pagans from Babylon, where he shall erect rich monasteries, and put all the enemies of religion to flight. And when he wears about his neck this drop of golden water, he shall be victorious and augment his kingdom. As for thee, thou shall die ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... other, we believe, St. Ignatius. Not very far from this part of the building there used to be a statue of St. Patrick; but it was removed to one side, awhile since, either to make room for some other ornament, or to edify those belonging "ould Ireland" who may happen to sit near its present position. Towards the higher end, and on each side of the church, there is an opening, projecting back several yards. A gallery occupies each of these spaces, and beneath there are seats. The roof of the nave, which is ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... said, "ask Rachel! If she broke her back to-morrow she would have at least twenty good reasons for congratulation with which to edify me for the first time we met. Wouldn't you, dear? I am quite sure you would accept it ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Revolution, and that he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these is a pious treatise, entitled "Of Christianity, and of its Influence." Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... without Amputation, or Addition. Produce her to us in her neat Country Apparel, such as she appear'd in, on her intended Departure to her Parents; for such best becomes her Innocence, and beautiful Simplicity. Such a Dress will best edify and entertain. The flowing Robes of Oratory may indeed amuse and amaze, but will never strike ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... the course of Oxford education would suffer little if no professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing professors were ex abundanti to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of exertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might edify the university, it would contribute but little to the promotion of academic purposes. The establishment of professors is, in fact, a thing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants; but, in Oxford, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... very special force, To edify a clergyman With suitable discourse,— You think you 've got him—when he calls A friend across the way, And begs you'll say that funny thing You said the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... works to Appear in print were also occasioned by the work of his calling and of his office in the Wittenberg congregation. He had no other object in view than to edify his congregation and to lead it to Christ when, in 1517, he published his first independent work, the Explanation of the Seven Penitential Psalms. On Oct 31 of the same year he published his 95 Theses against ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... and containing much true and pleasant doctrine; but how is it that you, who are so fond of good books, and good things in general, never read the Bible? You read me the book of Master Ellis Wyn, you read me sweet songs of your own composition, you edify me with your gift of prayer, but yet you never read the Bible.' And when I heard her mention the Bible I shook, for I thought of my own condemnation. However, I dearly loved my wife, and as she pressed me, I commenced ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its author, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... may possibly operate upon the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live, and will edify a thousand times more than the art of wetting the handkerchiefs of a whole congregation, if you were sure ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... treats of Things offer'd to Idols, and in the 10th Chapter explaining the Meaning of this Place, says, All Things are lawful for me, but all Things are not expedient; all Things are lawful for me, but all Things edify not. Let no Man seek his own, but every Man the Things of another. Whatsoever is sold in the Shambles, eat ye. And that which St. Paul subjoins, agrees with what he said before: Meats for the Belly, and the Belly for Meats; but God shall destroy both it and them. Now that which has ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... answer questions, or to make observations, or to detail facts, or in any other way to employ his speaking powers extemporaneously, (not repeating words by rote,) the person who does so will greatly edify the ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... imitate my Master.[445] I am a Christian to no purpose if I do not follow Christ.[446] Perhaps by humility I shall bend the tyrant; if not, yet I shall conquer by rendering, a shepherd to a sheep, a priest to a layman, that duty which he owed to me. You also, as far as in me lies, I shall edify not a little by such an example. For what if I should chance to be killed? I refuse not to die,[447] in order that from me you may have an example of life. It behoves a bishop, as the prince of bishops says, not to be lord over ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... logical mind, gave him at all times, an unobtrusive reliance on himself; with an inexhaustible mental treasury that qualified him alike to shine in the friendly circle, or to charm, and astonish, and edify, in the crowded assembly. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... see nothing but a drunken dream or the nightmare of a distempered imagination. To ourselves it is the speaking with unknown tongues to the early Corinthians; we cannot fully understand our own speech, and we fear lest there be not a sufficient number of interpreters present to make our utterance edify. But there! (Go on straight to the body of ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... more, seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church; and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants, to ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 18. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. 19. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. 20. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. 21. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... a preacher, great before he was shut up in gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his imprisonment. The barn in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was licensed as a preacher, was "so thronged the first time he appeared there to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every one that was of his persuasion striving to partake of his instructions." Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous days returned, in woods, and in dells, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... freely discover what you choose. Only do not talk too loudly about it: leave that to us. We understand the world, and are meant to guide and govern it. So discover freely: and meanwhile hand over your discoveries to us, that we may instruct and edify the populace with so much of them as we think safe, while we keep our position thereby, and in many cases make much money by your science. Do that, and we will patronise you, applaud you, ask you to our houses; and you shall ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... and I am encouraged to try my hand at what they call a sketch—a one-act play. It seems that they are in need of something a little less thin than the usual article they've been serving up to their patrons,—more of a playlet; something, I suppose, to edify the wife of the Tired Business Man after he has enjoyed the Tramp Juggler and the Trained Seals. Rodney Harrison has helped me no end,—trotted me about to all the best places and helped me to study and learn from them, and now I'm ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... he washed his hands of it, and that he would confine himself to conveying the decisions on both sides, and affording a refuge to Brother Nepomucene, partly out of Christian charity, and partly to edify his monks by the example of a truly devout man. According to him, Brother Nepomucene would be the second of that name placed in the front rank of the heavenly host by virtue of the canons ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... upon Mistress Hutchinson and her followers. It was doubtless the riotous conduct of these radicals that caused the resolution to be passed by the assembly in 1637, which stated, according to Winthrop: "That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and edify one another; yet such a set assembly, (as was then in practice at Boston), where sixty or more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, by resolving questions of doctrine, and expounding scripture) took upon her the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... doe not like the Tower, of any place: Did Iulius Csar build that place, my Lord? Buck. He did, my gracious Lord, begin that place, Which since, succeeding Ages haue re-edify'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... only needed a wider range of Scripture knowledge and some little guidance in its public affairs. Singularly free from the admixture of foreign elements in its constitution, it had pastors and teachers; the brethren were accustomed to edify one another, and were zealous for the spread of ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... heard and well considered, I will not strive about words: for that is profitable to nothing, but the subversion of the hearers. But the law is good to edify, if a man use it lawfully: for that the end of it is charity, out of a pure heart and good conscience, and faith unfeigned. And well did our Master know, upon which two commandments He hung all the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... near the well, under the old fig tree, in the shade of which the abbesses of this convent are accustomed to hold their meetings. Thou wilt find her there, venerable father; but hasten, for God calls her, and this night a shroud will cover that face which God made both to shame and to edify this world." ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... at Berne. Till then Arras had supplied most of the splendid decorations of which we find such marvellous lists. Every possible subject—religious, romantic, historical, and allegorical—was pressed into the service, and pictured hangings were supposed to instruct, amuse, and edify the beholders. The dark ages were illuminated, and their barbarity softened, by these constant appeals to men's highest instincts, and to the memories of their noblest antecedents and aspirations, which clothed their walls, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... the books, and now the bells, And now our act, the preacher tells, To edify the people; All our divinity is news, And we have made of equal use ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... concludes the author of "Robinson Crusoe," "the observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense and by the charitable contribution of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... he told him, that he found these articles so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys. And that this juridical and canonical sifting of poor ministers was not to edify and reform. And that in charity he thought, they ought not to answer to all these nice points, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy: Begging his grace to bear with that one fault, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... obedience thereof; not seeking after Christ, nor studying to honour him in the excellency of his person, nor to employ him in the virtue of his offices; not making conscience of the public ordinances, nor studying to edify one another in love. The ignorance of God and his Son Jesus Christ prevails exceedingly in the land." Even our fathers in their purest times confessed, in their acknowledgement of sins, "That the greatest part of masters of families among noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, and commons, ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... might without serious wrong meet together to pray and edify one another. But that a large number of sixty or more should do so every week was agreed to be "disorderly and without rule." And as Mrs. Hutchinson would not cease her preaching and teaching, but obstinately continued ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... am, your ladyship must permit me to lend you a copy of an essay I have with me, by that great philosopher, the Stoic Chrysippos,[39] although I cannot agree with all his teachings; and this copy of Panaitios, the Eclectic's great Treatise on Duty, which cannot fail to edify your ladyship." And he ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis



Words linked to "Edify" :   learn, teach, edification, enlighten, instruct



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