erectile

Etymology

It is borrowed from French érectile,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which is formed from Latin ērēctus (“set upright”), the past participle of ērigō (“to raise, set up”), and the suffix -ile.^[5][3][6] The Latin verb is from ē- (“up, out of”) and regō (“to direct, keep straight”).^[3] The English word thus belongs with erect and -ile.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a kind of animal tissue, able to swell under excitement and so become rigid: 1830, in Robert Knox's translation of Béclard's Elements of General Anatomy.^[2][5] Etymonline dates the word to 1822, glossing it "pertaining to muscular erection",^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1820–30.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The anatomical sense came first, and the general sense "able to be set upright" followed in 1831, in a translation of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom; the 1989 edition of the OED dated it to 1834.^[2][8] The noun erectility is recorded from 1860.^[8][4] The medical term erectile dysfunction dates from 1970 in the OED,^[2] 1976 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[5]

Timeline

• 1830 – of animal tissue, able to swell with blood and become rigid.^[2][5]
• 1831 – able to be raised or set upright.^[2]
• 1970 – erectile dysfunction.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (physiology) Of tissue or an organ such as the penis or clitoris: able to become rigid and erect when filled with blood.^[9][5][2][4]
2. Able to be raised to an upright position: The bird raised its erectile crest in alarm.^[9][5][2]

Word family

• erectility
• erectile dysfunction

Related words

• erect
• erection

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins