Also 6– erecter. [f. ERECT v. + -OR.] One who, or that which, erects.
1. One who erects or rears a building, statue, etc.
1538. Leland, Itin., III. 97. Richard Poure … first Erector of the Cathedral Chirch of New Saresbyri.
1563. Homilies, II. Peril Idol. (1859), 239. Therefore woe be to the erecter, setter up, and maintainer of images in churches and temples.
1648. W. Mountague, Devout Ess., I. (T.). Rehoboam’s young counsellors were, in some relation, the Erectors of Jeroboam’s calves.
1823. Scott, Peveril, i. William Peveril … the erector of that Gothic fortress.
1884. Birmghm. Daily Post, 24 Jan., 3/5. Good Bridge Erectors and Carpenters.
† 2. One who institutes an office, rule or practice; the founder of an institution; also, one who sets up a candidate or pretender. Obs. exc. as fig. of 1.
1548. in Stow, Surv. (1754), I. III. v. 580/2. Their [the Hospitals’] chiefe Erector being dead.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 246. And for the holy Band … Gorgidas was the first erector of the same.
1609. Man in Moone (1849), 16. Idlenesse patrone, Pride’s founder, Gluttonies erector.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit. (1614), 66. The erectors of Lambert, a counterfet Warwick.
1648. King’s Messages for Peace, 73. The erectors and propugnators of the Presbyterian Discipline in Scotland.
1754. Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 463. Pherecydes was the original erecter of it.
1803. Bingham, in N. & Q., Ser. III. III. 76. They were … simply the result of a fashion, or the taste, or means of the erecter.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, I. 153. How I, The erector of the empire in his hand,—Am bent beneath that hand.
3. Optics. = erecting-glass (see ERECTING vbl. sb. 2).
4. A term applied to certain muscles, from their office in causing erection in any part of the body. Also attrib., as in erector-muscle.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 187. The erector muscles of the spine.
1857. Bullock, trans. Cazeaux’s Midwifery, 42. The clitoris … has … an erector muscle.
1876. Duhring, Dis. Skin, 29. Erectores pili or erectors of the hair.
