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Definition
a building — especially a large oneor:
a conceptual or organizational framework
- The corporation was housed in an imposing edifice.
edifice = a building — especially a large one
- He was determined to defeat the bill and tear down the entire edifice of free trade treaties.
- That edifice is colossal.Victor Hugo -- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- It gave beauty to the old edifice, and seemed to make it a part of nature.Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The House of the Seven Gables
- He saw a little glow ahead of him, and then without interval a tall flame leaped up in the dark with a crackling roar, and a tall edifice of fire lighted the pathway.John Steinbeck -- The Pearl
- The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.Thomas Hardy -- Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- The Shah ordered him to construct an edifice of this kind.Gaston Leroux -- The Phantom of the Opera
- And—a small bonus here—a woman who was, in George's observation, "built like a brick edifice.Russell Baker -- Growing Up
- It was in the green burial-place of this edifice that Mrs. Touchett consigned her son to earth.Henry James -- The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2
- Misuse of public funds, waste and corruption had reached such proportions during his administration that the edifice was toppling of its own weight.Margaret Mitchell -- Gone with the Wind
- She looked microscopically at the lines of her flanks, wondering how soon the fine, slim edifice would begin to sink squat and earthward.F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Tender is the Night
- That dreadful question, "What for?" which had formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him.Leo Tolstoy -- War and Peace
- Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.Arundhati Roy -- The God of Small Things
- He landed and the whole edifice swayed drunkenly.Stephen King -- The Gunslinger
- Some large permanent brick edifices have already been reared on the scene of the ruins, and many others are in the process of erection....Jim Murphy -- The Great Fire
- I know they've sent countless packages that are piled up somewhere in the great, crumbling postal edifice downtown.Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible
- My eyes searched the dark narrow passage to the right of the wide square edifice under the tower.Stephenie Meyer -- New Moon
- CHAPTER X Carley's edifice of hopes, dreams, aspirations, and struggles fell in ruins about her.Zane Grey -- The Call of the Canyon
- The huge edifice seemed to sway overhead, hundreds of feet high, a sheer cliff of stone.Cassandra Clare -- City of Ashes
- The well-crafted social edifice, the perfection of humanity, the new Jerusalem.Thomas Mann -- The Magic Mountain
edifice = building
edifice = building
edifice = framework