edifying

[ ed-uh-fahy-ing ]

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.

Other Words From

• ed·i·fy·ing·ly adverb
• un·ed·i·fy·ing adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of edifying¹

edify + -ing ²

Example Sentences

It’s also a central pillar of the pair’s edifying new sitcom.

From Los Angeles Times

“Will & Harper’s” ability to walk a fine line between being edifying and didactic, entertaining and superficial, is woven into its very structure, with its stars’ connection deepening by degrees until they reach the Mojave Desert town of Trona, where Steele, in a shattering moment, reveals the depths of her past self-hatred.

From Los Angeles Times

I was doing that job, less than part time, for only a brief period, while for the adults working in the dining hall, it was a more permanent and far less edifying condition.

From New York Times

It was important that the production felt seminal and worthy of the piece, that the experience be as edifying and healing as it could be for everybody involved, and that my insecurities and my worry didn’t tank the experiences for my collaborators.

From Los Angeles Times

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