Also 6 electe. Sc. eleck. Pa. t. and pple. elected, 6 elect(e. [f. ēlect- ppl. stem of ēligĕre (see prec.).]
† 1. trans. To pick out, choose (usually, for a particular purpose or function). Also absol. Obs. in general sense.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge (1848), 164. A noble gentilman … Elected a spouses at his owne deuice.
1557. Paynel, Barcklay’s Jugurth., 28 b. He had elect and assembled such compani as him thought competent for an army.
1571. Digges, Pantom., I. xxxiv. L. Hauing elected a loftie seate.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., IV. i. 3. Now Gouernour of Paris take your oath, That you elect no other King but him. Ibid. (1603), Meas. for M., I. i. 19. We haue with speciall soule Elected him our absence to supply.
1607. Rowlands, Diog. Lanth., 28. A heedefull care wee ought to haue, When we doe frends elect.
1681. Chetham, Angler’s Vade-m., ii. § 1 (1689), 7. Elect your Hair not from lean, poor, or diseased jades.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxv. (1819), 399. The magnetic needle elects its position.
2. To make deliberate choice of (a course of action, an opinion, etc.) in preference to an alternative. In legal use often absol.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., VIII. i. Comyn wytte doothe full well electe What it shoulde take, and what it shall abjecte.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. ii. 59. It can suspend its own acting, either of electing or rejecting.
1818. Cruise, Digest, VI. 26. He must therefore elect.
1837. Penny Cycl., IX. 334/1. They are seldom called to adjudicate upon it, except where the party has already elected.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, iii. Swedenborg, Wks. (Bohn), I. 334. He elected goodness as the clue to which the soul must cling in all this labyrinth of nature.
1874. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. i. § 25. The Motives which we determinately elect as our guiding principles of action.
b. with infinitive as obj. (Now common, but formerly chiefly in legal use).
a. 1626. Bacon, Max. & Uses Com. Law, ix. (1636), 38. But if there bee an overplus of goods … then ought he … to determine what goods hee doth elect to have in value.
1661. Boyle, Style of Script., 182. I would not have Christians … elect to read God’s word, rather in any book than his own.
1788. J. Powell, Devises (1827), II. 65. The daughter … was a lunatic, and therefore incompetent to elect to take the estate as land or money.
1817. W. Selwyn, Law Nisi Prius, II. 905. The assured may elect to abandon to the underwriter all right to such part of the property as may be saved.
1868. Helps, Realmah, xvi. (1876), 447. She was secretly delighted that the jester had elected to live with her.
3. To choose (a person) by vote for appointment to an office or position of any kind. Used in three different constructions: To elect (a person) to (an office, etc.); to elect (an officer, etc.); and with complement, as ‘they elected him their chief.’ Also absol.
1494. Fabyan, VI. ccii. 212. Gerbres … was electe pope of Rome.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, 79. Sexburge was electe To be abbesse.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., I. i. 228. If you will elect by my aduise, Crowne him, and say: Long liue our Emperour.
1743. Tindal, trans. Rapin’s Hist. Eng., II. XVII. 94. They resolved to elect an Inter-Rex.
1785. Burns, Twa Herds, iv. Ye wha were … by the brutes themselves eleckit, To be their guide.
1777. Watson, Philip II. (1839), 159. They elected for their king Don Ferdinand de Valor.
a. 1862. Buckle, Civiliz. (1873), III. i. 32. Few of the Scotch towns ventured to elect their chief magistrate from among their own people.
4. Theol. Of God: To choose (certain of His creatures) in preference to others, as the recipients of temporal or spiritual blessings; esp. to choose as the objects of eternal salvation. Also absol.
a. 1617. P. Bayne, On Eph. (1658), 42. Antecedency of faith before the act of electing.
1626. W. Sclater, Expos. 2 Thess. (1629), 68. To induce the Lord to elect or predestinate.
1837. Penny Cycl., IX. 333/1. Particular persons, without any regard whatever to their merits or demerits, are elected, or rejected for ever.
