edifice(n = noun.artifact) building - a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place; "there was a three-story building on the corner"; "it was an imposing edifice"
is a kind of construction, structure
has parts: annex, annexe, extension, wing, antechamber, anteroom, entrance hall, foyer, hall, lobby, vestibule, corner, quoin, corner, nook, cornerstone, cornerstone, court, courtyard, cullis, elevator, lift, exterior door, outside door, floor, level, storey, story, foundation stone, heat, heating, heating plant, heating system, interior door, roof, room, scantling, stud, shaft, frame, skeletal frame, skeleton, underframe, staircase, stairway, upstairs, wall, window, crawl space, crawlspace
has particulars: abattoir, butchery, shambles, slaughterhouse, apartment building, apartment house, architecture, aviary, bird sanctuary, volary, bathhouse, bathing machine, bowling alley, center, centre, chapterhouse, club, clubhouse, dorm, dormitory, hall, residence hall, student residence, farm building, feedlot, firetrap, gambling den, gambling hell, gambling house, gaming house, gazebo, summerhouse, government building, glasshouse, greenhouse, nursery, hall, hall, hall of fame, hotel, casino-hotel, hotel-casino, house, house, library, health facility, healthcare facility, medical building, ministry, dead room, morgue, mortuary, observatory, office block, office building, opium den, outbuilding, packinghouse, house of god, house of prayer, house of worship, place of worship, planetarium, presbytery, eatery, eating house, eating place, restaurant, rest house, rink, skating rink, roman building, rotunda, ruin, school, schoolhouse, shooting gallery, signal box, signal tower, skyscraper, student union, tap house, tavern, telco building, telecom hotel, temple, house, theater, theatre, bagnio, bawdyhouse, bordello, brothel, cathouse, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, sporting house, whorehouse, independence hall, houses of parliament
A building; a structure; an architectural fabric; -- chiefly applied to elegant houses, and other large buildings; as, a palace, a church, a statehouse. [1913 Webster]
edifice, n.
1 a building, esp. a large imposing one.
2 a complex organizational or conceptual structure.
Etymology:
ME f. OF f. L aedificium f. aedis dwelling + - ficium f. facere make
N production, creation, construction, formation, fabrication, manufacture, building, architecture, erection, edification, coinage, diaster, organization, nisus formativus, putting together, establishment, workmanship, performance, achievement, flowering, fructification, inflorescence, bringing forth, parturition, birth, birth-throe, childbirth, delivery, confinement, accouchement, travail, labor, midwifery, obstetrics, geniture, gestation, assimilation, evolution, development, growth, entelechy, fertilization, gemination, germination, heterogamy, genesis, generation, epigenesis, procreation, progeneration, propagation, fecundation, impregnation, albumen, spontaneous generation, archegenesis, archebiosis, biogenesis, abiogenesis, digenesis, dysmerogenesis, eumerogenesis, heterogenesis, oogenesis, merogenesis, metogenesis, monogenesis, parthenogenesis, homogenesis, xenogenesis, authorship, publication, works, opus, oeuvre, biogeny, dissogeny, xenogeny, tocogony, vacuolization, edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit, produced, producing, productive of, prolific, creative, formative, genetic, genial, genital, pregnant, enceinte, big with, fraught with, in the family way, teeming, parturient, in the straw, brought to bed of, puerperal, puerperous, digenetic, heterogenetic, oogenetic, xenogenetic, ectogenous, gamic, haematobious, sporogenous, sporophorous, architectonic, ex nihilo nihil, fiat lux, materiam superabat opus, nemo dat quod non habet.