different between erect vs aggravate

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

English

Etymology

From Latin aggravatus, past participle of aggravare (“to add to the weight of, make worse, oppress, annoy”), from ad (“to”) + gravare (“to make heavy”), from gravis (“heavy”). See grave and compare aggrieve and aggrege.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ?.??.ve??t/

Verb

aggravate (third-person singular simple present aggravates, present participle aggravating, simple past and past participle aggravated)

1. To make (an offence) worse or more severe; to increase in offensiveness or heinousness. [from 16th c.]
   • 1709 Joseph Addison, The Tatler

     The defense made by the prisoner's counsel did rather aggravate than extenuate his crime.

2. (by extension) To make worse; to exacerbate. [from 16th c.]
   • 1837, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic

     […] to aggravate the horrors of the scene

3. (now rare) To give extra weight or intensity to; to exaggerate, to magnify. [from 16th c.]

4. (obsolete) To pile or heap (something heavy or onerous) on or upon someone. [16th–18th c.]
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford 2009, p. 28:

     In order to lighten the crown still further, they aggravated responsibility on ministers of state.

5. (now chiefly colloquial) To exasperate; to provoke or irritate. [from 16th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa:

     If both were to aggravate her parents, as my brother and sister do mine.

   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 85:

     Ben Bella was aggravated by having to express himself in French because the Egyptians were unable to understand his Arabic.

Usage notes

Although the meaning "to exasperate, to annoy" has been in continuous usage since the 16th century, a large number of usage mavens have contested it since the 1870s. Opinions have swayed from this proscription since 1965, but it still garners disapproval in Garner's Modern American Usage (2009), at least for formal writing.

Synonyms

• (to make worse): heighten, intensify, increase, magnify, exaggerate, exacerbate
• (to exasperate): provoke, irritate, exasperate
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• (to make worse): alleviate, mitigate

Related terms

• aggravation

Translations

Further reading

• aggravate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• aggravate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Italian

Verb

aggravate

1. second-person plural present indicative of aggravare
2. second-person plural imperative of aggravare
3. feminine plural of aggravato

Latin

Verb

aggrav?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of aggrav?