apartment building vs edifice

apartment building and edifice both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
apartment building	Yes	No	No	No
edifice	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, edifice is a hypernym of apartment building; that is, edifice is a word with a broader meaning than apartment building:

apartment building: a building that is divided into apartments
edifice: a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place

Other hypernyms of apartment building include building.

apartment building (noun)	edifice (noun)
a building that is divided into apartments	a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place