The word for today is…

edify (verb):
1 : to instruct and improve especially in moral and religious knowledge

2 archaic
a : build
b : establish

Source : Merriam -Webster

Etymology : The Latin noun aedes, meaning “house” or “temple,” is the root of aedificare, a verb meaning “to erect a house.” Generations of speakers built on that meaning, and by the Late Latin period, the verb had gained the figurative sense of “to instruct or improve spiritually.” The word eventually passed through Anglo-French before Middle English speakers adopted it as edify during the 14th century. Two of its early meanings, “to build” and “to establish,” are now considered archaic; the only current sense of edify is essentially the same as that figurative meaning in Late Latin, “to instruct and improve in moral and religious knowledge.”

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David is a retired surgeon originally from London who came to New Zealand twenty-seven years ago after being delayed in Singapore for thirteen years on leaving the UK. He was coerced into studying Latin...