different between dignify vs erect

English

Etymology

From Old French dignifier, from Late Latin dignificare, from dignus (“worthy”) + ficare (in comp.), facere (“to make”). See deign and fact.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d??n?fa?/

Verb

dignify (third-person singular simple present dignifies, present participle dignifying, simple past and past participle dignified)

1. (transitive) To invest with dignity or honour.
   • 1616, Ben Jonson, Inviting A Friend To Supper

     Your worth will dignify our feast.

2. (transitive) To give distinction to.
3. (transitive) To exalt in rank.
4. (transitive, chiefly in the negative) To treat as worthy or acceptable; to indulge or condone by acknowledging.

   I will not dignify that comment with a response.

Synonyms

• exalt
• elevate
• prefer
• advance
• honor
• illustrate
• adorn
• ennoble

Antonyms

• demean
• humiliate
• mortify
• shame

Related terms

• dignity
• dignification
• dignified

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt
• Hyphenation: erect

Etymology 1

From Middle English erect, a borrowing from Latin ?rectus (“upright”), past participle of ?rig? (“raise, set up”), from ?- (“out”) + reg? (“to direct, keep straight, guide”).

Adjective

erect (comparative more erect, superlative most erect)

1. Upright; vertical or reaching broadly upwards.
   • 1789, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 6, chapter 64.

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

2. (of body parts) Rigid, firm; standing out perpendicularly, especially as the result of stimulation.

   Synonyms: hard, stiff

3. (of a man) Having an erect penis

   Synonyms: hard, stiff

4. (obsolete) Bold; confident; free from depression; undismayed.
   • 1827, John Keble, The Christian Year

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

5. (obsolete) Directed upward; raised; uplifted.
6. Watchful; alert.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     vigilant and erect attention of mind

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

Antonyms

• (rigid; standing out perpendicularly): flaccid

Derived terms

• erectable
• semierect

Related terms

• erectile
• erection
• erigible

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English erecten, from the adjective (see above).

Verb

erect (third-person singular simple present erects, present participle erecting, simple past and past participle erected)

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

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.
   1. (aviation, of a gyroscopic attitude indicator) To spin up and align to vertical.

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

   • that didst his state above his hopes erect

   • , Preface

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

5. To animate; to encourage; to cheer.
   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, Of Contentment (sermon)

     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, 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.

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

   • Malebranche erects this proposition.

8. To set up or establish; to found; to form; to institute.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     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.

Synonyms

• build

Derived terms

• erecting shop
• re-erect, reerect

Translations

Anagrams

• -crete, Crete, recte, terce