erected

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of erect.

   Workers erected the scaffolding around the old church over two weeks.

   The monument was erected to honor the soldiers who never returned.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one spelling does double duty: the past (workers erected a frame) and the participle after have or be (it has been erected). Because erect is nearly always transitive, erected usually takes an object or sits in the passive. The exception is the intransitive sense of spinning up and aligning to vertical, where nothing is erected by anyone. Don't confuse it with the nonstandard adjective.

2. 2
   adjectivenonstandard

   Of a body part such as the penis, clitoris, or a nipple: firm and raised rather than relaxed.

   Veterinary students traced how the sheath folds back over the erected penis of a stallion.

   Erected nipples are a normal response to cold and need no treatment.

   Similarstiff, hard, firm

   Oppositeflaccid, relaxed

   Note

   A participle pressed into service where erect is the expected adjective, which is why careful usage counts it nonstandard. It still turns up in technical prose, as in Budras, Sack and Rock's Anatomy of the Horse (2003), and in fiction, nearly always before the noun. In careful writing, prefer erect. After be, erected reads as the verb: the nipples were erected implies someone raised them.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2