In speaking of posture the sense is now commonly expressed by the adj., as To walk erect.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. i. 181. Birds … generally carry their heads erectly like man. Ibid. (1682), Chr. Mor., 99. Be not under any brutal metempsychosis while thou livest and walkest about erectly under the scheme of man.
1796. C. Marshall, Garden., xii. (1813), 144. A weak tree is helped much by training it more erectly than usual.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., III. vi. 225. A goat walking erectly on his hinder feet.
1808. Scott, Marm., II. xxxii. The locks, that wont her brow to shade, Start up erectly from her head.
1824–9. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1840), II. 4. The Greeks were under disadvantages … yet they rose through them vigorously and erectly.
b. Comb. erectly-spreading a. Bot. ‘between erect and spreading.’
1849. in Paxton, Bot. Dict.
