Uprighting

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of returning something to an upright position; the process of restoring balance to an unjust scenario; the act of setting a person or object back to its correct vertical alignment
2. A method for placing an item back in a straight posture; a strategy for correcting inequities or imbalances; the effort to adjust someone or something to a proper standing state
3. The process of moving an object back to a vertical stance ; the act of making a situation fair or just again

Etymology: "Uprighting" is the present participle of the verb "to upright," which means to set something back into a vertical or straight position. The verb is built from "up" and "right," and the two parts have been fused for over a thousand years. The base word traces back to Old English "upriht," meaning erect or standing straight, which goes back to a Proto-Germanic form combining "up" with a root meaning straight or correct. The "right" in the compound is the same word as the one meaning correct or just, and it is the same root found in the sense of a straight line or a proper course. So "upright" literally says "straight up," and the sense of moral uprightness, an honest and principled person, grows naturally from that picture of standing straight. The gerund form has shifted into the more abstract uses in the definition: correcting a wrong, rebalancing an unfair situation, or restoring someone to a proper footing. These extensions build on the physical image of pulling something back to vertical.

Synonyms: erecting, raising