[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
† 1. That builds. Obs.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), II. 499. One demolishing hammer can undo more in a day than ten edifying axes can advance in a month.
2. Tending to produce moral and spiritual improvement; instructive. In mod. use often ironical.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 1 b. What so euer ye fynde therin, good and edifyenge, gyue laude and praysynge to god therfore.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xlv. 361. Their Conversation, that it might not be Scandalous, but Edifying to others.
1766. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom. (ed. 4), I. v. 135. How edifying to the soul is this generous sensibility!
1813. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1867), I. 224. The humiliating and disgusting, but at the same time most edifying spectacle.
1872. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 41. Voltaire’s spirit may be little edifying to us.
Hence Edifyingly adv., in an instructive or improving manner; in mod. use often ironical.
1662. Sparrow, trans. Behme’s Theosoph. Lett., 3. He … might thereby … edifyingly … quicken himself in a Christian brotherly Union.
1702. Echard, Eccl. Hist. (1710), 305. Not so well or edifyingly instructed.
1876. Contemp. Rev., XXVII. 969. The sermon was edifyingly platitudinarian.
