To raise and set in an upright or perpendicular position; set up; raise up: as, to erect a telegraph-pole or a flagstaff.To raise, as a building; build; construct: as, to erect a house or a temple; to erect a fort.To set up or establish; found; form; frame: as, to erect a kingdom or commonwealth; to erect a new system or theory.To raise from a lower level or condition to a higher; elevate; exalt; lift up.To animate; encourage.To advance or set forth; propound.To draw, as a figure, upon a base; construct, as a figure: as, to erect a horoscope; to erect a circle on a given line as a semidiameter; to erect a perpendicular to a line from a given point in the line.2 and Construct, build, institute, establish, plant.1 and Elevate. See raise.To take an upright position; rise.Having an upright posture; standing; directed upward; raised; uplifted.Specifically— In heraldry, set vertically in some unusual way: thus, a boar's head charged with the muzzle or snout uppermost, pointing to the top of the field, is said to be erect.In botany, vertical throughout; not spreading or declined; upright: as, an erect stem; an erect leaf or ovule.In entomology, upright: applied to hairs, spines, etc., when they are nearly but not quite at right angles to the surface or margin on which they are situated. In this sense distinguished from perpendicular or vertical.Hence Upright and firm; bold.Intent; alert.