[f. as prec. + -NESS.]
1. The quality or condition of being erect; an erect attitude.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. i. 180. One kinde of Locust … stands … in a large erectnesse…; by Zoographers called mantis.
1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., I. i. Persons [who] … think not the erectness of man’s stature a sufficient distinction of him from Brutes.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), IV. 208. The erectness of her mien.
1811. Miss L. M. Hawkins, C’tess & Gertr., II. 379. For the use of these, he set up a perpendicular staff, as a standard of erectness.
1862. Geo. Eliot, Romola, I. xv. (1863), III. 263. In the renunciation of her proud erectness, her mental attitude seemed changed.
fig.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, Notes 164/1. The rightnesse of the angles, is a plain embleme of erectnesse or uprightnesse of mind.
1822. Hazlitt, Men & Mann., Knowl. World (1852), 142. We should retain something of the erectness and openness of our first unbiassed thoughts.
1878. P. Bayne, Purit. Rev., ii. 47. A refreshing sense of moral erectness.
† 2. Altitude. Obs. rare–1.
1612. Brerewood, Lang. & Relig., xiii. 134. The highest sort of them [mountains] pass not in perpendicular erectness to furlongs.
