lexicow

edifice

/ˈedɪfɪs//ˈedɪfɪs/·noun
I watch a temple build itself out of nothing: the base, then columns standing up one by one, then a great beam dropped across their heads, then a triangle set on top and a small bead to crown it. For a moment it is monumental, as if it had always stood there. Then it quietly takes itself apart to begin again — and I'm reminded that something that grand was still set down one piece at a time.
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Definition

An edifice is a building — but never a shed or a hut; the word is reserved for something large, solid and meant to impress, like a cathedral or a courthouse. By extension it names any grand structure built up piece by piece over time: an edifice of law, an entire edifice of economic theory. That figurative use carries a quiet warning, because an edifice, however towering, rests on its foundations — and a structure raised course by course can also be brought down course by course.

Examples

  • The marble edifice dominated the square, dwarfing everything around it.
  • Their whole case is an edifice built on a single unproven notion.
  • One contradictory finding can undermine an edifice of theory that took decades to raise.

Collocations

an imposing edifice·a towering edifice·the edifice of·a grand edifice·an edifice of theory

Synonyms

structure·building·monument·construction·pile

Antonyms

ruin·rubble

Word family

edify (verb)·edification (noun)

In TOEFL & IELTS

Most powerful in academic Writing as a metaphor — 'an edifice of evidence', 'the edifice of classical theory' — to frame a body of thought as a built structure that can stand or fall. Literally, it elevates description of grand architecture. Formal and a touch literary; stress the first syllable, ED-i-fis, with a soft /ɪs/ ending, not '-fice' as in 'office'.