lift
/lɪft/ verb, noun
Forms lifts lifting lifted yleft
- verb (ambitransitive) To raise or rise. “The fog eventually lifted, leaving the streets clear.”
- verb (transitive) To cause to move upwards.
- verb (transitive, slang) To steal.
- verb (transitive, slang) To source directly without acknowledgement; to plagiarise.
- verb (transitive, slang) To arrest (a person).
- verb (transitive) To remove (a ban, restriction, etc.).
- verb (transitive) To alleviate, to lighten (pressure, tension, stress, etc.)
- verb (intransitive, especially Scotland) To disperse, to break up.
- noun An act of lifting or raising.
- noun The act of transporting someone in a vehicle; a ride; a trip. “He gave me a lift to the bus station.”
- noun (UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, puristic elsewhere) A mechanical device for vertically transporting goods or people between floors in a building. “Take the lift to the fourth floor.”
- noun A mechanical device for raising vehicles for service, so that it is easier for a mechanic to get beneath them.
- noun An upward force; especially, the force (generated by wings, rotary wings, or airfoils) that keeps aircraft aloft.
- noun (weightlifting) Any technique for lifting weights.
- noun (measurement) The difference in elevation between the upper pool and lower pool of a waterway, separated by lock.
- noun (historical slang) A thief.
- noun (UK dialectal, chiefly Scotland) Air.
- noun (UK dialectal, chiefly Scotland) The sky; the heavens; firmament; atmosphere.
Synonyms
ride elevator air atmosphere welkin aerodynamic lift elevation raising rise ski tow ski lift face lift facelift face lifting cosmetic surgery rhytidectomy rhytidoplasty nip and tuck airlift raise heave elevate get up bring up arise move up go up come up uprise revoke
Etymology
From Middle English liften, lyften, from Old Norse lypta (“to lift, air”, literally “to raise in the air”), from Proto-Germanic *luftijaną (“to raise in the air”), related to *luftuz (“roof, air”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *lewp- (“to peel, break off, damage”) or from a root meaning roof (see *luftuz). Cognate with Danish and Norwegian Bokmål løfte (“to lift”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish lyfta (“to lift”), German lüften (“to air, lift”), Old English lyft (“air”). See above. 1851 for the noun sense "a mechanical device for vertical transport".
(To steal): For this sense Cleasby suggests perhaps a relation to the root of Gothic 𐌷𐌻𐌹𐍆𐍄𐌿𐍃 (hliftus) "thief", cognate with Latin cleptus and Greek κλέπτω (kléptō)). But perhaps simply from the idea of removing an item from a surface.
From Middle English lifte, luft, lefte (“air, sky, heaven”), from Old English lyft (“atmosphere, air”), from Proto-West Germanic *luftu, from Proto-Germanic *luftuz (“roof, sky, air”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewp- (“to peel, break off, damage”).
Cognate with Old High German luft (“air”) (German Luft), Dutch lucht (“air”), Old Norse lopt, loft (“upper room, sky, air”). Doublet of loft and luft.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The sky; the atmosphere; the firmament. [Obs. or Scot.]
- verb To move in a direction opposite to that of gravitation; to raise; to elevate; to bring up from a lower place to a higher; to upheave; sometimes implying a continued support or holding in the higher place; --said of material things; as, to lift the foot or the hand; to lift a chair or a burden.
- verb To raise, elevate, exalt, improve, in rank, condition, estimation, character, etc.; --often with up. The Roman virtues lift up mortal man. Addison.
- verb To try to raise something; to exert the strength for raising or bearing.
Etymology [AS.lyft air. See Loft.]
Etymology [Icel. lypta, fr. lopt air; akin to Sw.lyfta to lift, Dan. löfte, G. lüften; -- prop., to raise into the air. See Loft, and cf. 1st Lift.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “lift”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details