• IPA: /ɪˈɹɛkt/

erect

1. Upright; vertical or reaching broadly upwards.

   • Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect — a column in a scene of ruins.

   • 1789, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 6, chapter 64.
2. Rigid, firm; standing out perpendicularly.
3. (obsolete) Bold; confident; free from depression; undismayed.
   • 1827, John Keble, The Christian Year

     But who is he, by years / Bowed, but erect in heart?

4. (obsolete) Directed upward; raised; uplifted.
   • 1715, Alexander Pope, The Temple of Fame:

     His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view / Superior worlds, and look all nature through.

5. Watchful; alert.

   • vigilant and erect attention of mind

6. (heraldry) Elevated, as the tips of wings, heads of serpents, etc.

• (rigid; standing out perpendicularly) flaccid

• erectile
• erection
• erigible

• Italian: eretto, duro
• Portuguese: ereto
• Russian: прямо́й

• German: erigiert
• Italian: dritto, eretto
• Portuguese: ereto
• Russian: (somewhat) ощетинившийся

erect (erects, present participle erecting; past and past participle erected)

1. (transitive) To put up by the fitting together of materials or parts.

   to erect a house or a fort

2. (transitive) To cause to stand up or out.
3. To raise and place in an upright or perpendicular position; to set upright; to raise.

   to erect a pole, a flagstaff, a monument, etc.

4. To lift up; to elevate; to exalt; to magnify.

   • that didst his state above his hopes erect

   • 1700, [John] Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 228732415 ↗:

     , Preface

     I, who am a party, am not to erect myself into a judge.

5. To animate; to encourage; to cheer.

   • It raiseth the dropping spirit, erecting it to a loving complaisance.

6. (astrology) To cast or draw up (a figure of the heavens, horoscope etc.).
   • 1971, Keith Thomas (historian), Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 332:

     In 1581 Parliament made it a statutory felony to erect figures, cast nativities, or calculate by prophecy how long the Queen would live or who would succeed her.

7. To set up as an assertion or consequence from premises, etc.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths, London: Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, OCLC 838860010 ↗; Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths. […], 2nd corrected and much enlarged edition, London: Printed by A. Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath. Ekins, […], 1650, OCLC 152706203 ↗, (please specify ):

     from fallacious foundations, and misapprehended mediums, erecting conclusions no way inferrible from their premises

   • a. 1705, John Locke, “An Examination of P[ère] Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God”, in Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke: […], London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], published 1706, OCLC 6963663 ↗:

     Malebranche erects this proposition.

8. To set up or establish; to found; to form; to institute.

   • to erect a new commonwealth

   • 1812, Arthur Collins & Sir Egerton Brydges, Peerage of England ↗, F.C. and J. Rivington et al, page 330:

     In 1686, he was appointed one of the Commissioners in the new ecclesiastical commission erected by King James, and was proud of that honour.

• build

• Portuguese: erigir, erguer
• Russian: сооружать

• Portuguese: erigir, erguer
• Russian: выпрямлять