# lift
## English
### Pronunciation

* enPR: lĭft, IPA: /lɪft/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪft

### Etymology 1

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)).

#### Verb

lift (third-person singular simple present lifts, present participle lifting, simple past lifted or (rare, regional, obsolete) lift, past participle lifted or (rare, regional, obsolete) lift or (obsolete) yleft)
* (ambitransitive) To raise or rise.
    The fog eventually lifted, leaving the streets clear.
    You never lift a finger to help me!
** c. 1490, Of Penance and Confession be master Jhon Yrlandː
    Liftand (lifting) thy hands and thy eyen to Heaven.
** 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes.
** 1984 October 12, Janet Maslin, “Blood Simple, A black-comic romp”, in The New York Times, retrieved 9 July 2012:A long, late-night tracking shot from one end of the Neon Boot bar to another actually tracks along the surface of the bar itself—and when there is a drunk passed out on the bar, the camera simply lifts up and flies over him, then continues on its route.
** 2015 February 7, Val Bourne, “The quiet man of the world of snowdrops”, in The Daily Telegraph (London), page G8:Once it [a snowdrop variety] became established, some bulbs were lifted and passed on to be chipped (i.e. cut into small pieces and grown on).
* (transitive, slang) To steal.
** 1919, Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West:Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side, And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride.
** 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:“Wilbert Cream is a ... what's the word?” I referred to the letter. “A kleptomaniac […] Does any thought occur to you?” “It most certainly does. I am thinking of your uncle's collection of old silver.” “Me, too.” “It presents a grave temptation to the unhappy young man.” “I don't know that I'd call him unhappy. He probably thoroughly enjoys lifting the stuff.”
* (transitive, slang) To source directly without acknowledgement; to plagiarise.
** 2018, James Lambert, “Anglo-Indian slang in dictionaries on historical principles”, in World Englishes, volume 37, page 258:Based on a similarity across a range of Anglo-Indian entries in these three dictionaries, it appears that (along with other lexis) Barrère and Leland (1898) copied this entry from Hotten (1864), who had in turn lifted it directly from Stocqueler (1848).
* (transitive, slang) To arrest (a person).
** 2000, Marie Smyth, Marie-Therese Fay, Personal Accounts From Northern Ireland's Troubles:Maybe the police lifted him and he's in Castlereagh [Interrogation Centre] because he'd been lifted three or four times previously and took to Castlereagh. They used to come in and raid the house and take him away.
* (transitive) To remove (a ban, restriction, etc.).
* (transitive) To alleviate, to lighten (pressure, tension, stress, etc.)
** 2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport‎:The Gunners boss has been heavily criticised for his side's poor start to the Premier League season but this result helps lift the pressure.
* (transitive) to cause to move upwards.
** 2011 October 2, Aled Williams, “Swansea 2 - 0 Stoke”, in BBC Sport Wales‎:Graham secured victory with five minutes left, coolly lifting the ball over Asmir Begovic.
* (informal, intransitive) To lift weights; to weight-lift.
    She lifts twice a week at the gym.
* To try to raise something; to exert the strength for raising or bearing.
** a. 1705, John Locke, “Of the Conduct of the Understanding”, in Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke: […], London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], published 1706, →OCLC:strained by lifting at a weight too heavy
* To elevate or improve in rank, condition, etc.; often with up.
** 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:The Roman virtues lift up mortal man.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Timothy 3:6:being lifted up with pride
* (obsolete) To bear; to support.
** 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:Th' earth him underneath Did grone, as feeble so great load to lift.
* To collect, as moneys due; to raise.
* (category theory, transitive) Given morphisms $f$ and $g$ with the same target: To produce a morphism which the given morphism factors through (i.e. a morphism $h$ such that $f=g\circ h$; cf. lift n.18)
** (programming) To transform (a function) into a corresponding function in a different context.
*** 2021, Dean Wampler, chapter 2, in Programming Scala, 3rd edition, O'Reilly, →ISBN:Finally, we can lift a partial function into a regular (total) function that returns an Option or a Some(value) when the partial function is defined for the input argument or None when it isn't.
* (finance) To buy a security or other asset previously offered for sale.
* (hunting, transitive) To take (hounds) off the existing scent and move them to another spot.
** 1885, Lina Chaworth Musters, Book of Hunting Songs and Sport, page 144:I lifted the hounds (hoping to catch the leading ones there) to the far side of Hallaton Thorns.

##### Usage notes

Lift also has an obsolete form liftand for the present participle. The strong forms were common until the 17th century in writing and still survive in speech in a few rural dialects.

##### Hyponyms

* airlift

##### Derived terms

* airlift
* code-lift
* lift a finger
* lift all boats
* lift and separate
* lift and shift
* lifting
* lift off
* lift oneself up by one's bootstraps
* lift oneself up by one's boot-tags
* lift oneself up by one's own bootstraps
* lift oneself up by one's own boot-tags
* lift oneself up by one's own waistbands
* lift one's game
* lift someone's spirits
* lift the bar
* lift the lid
* lift up
* shoplift

##### Translations
#### Noun

lift (countable and uncountable, plural lifts)
* An act of lifting or raising.
* The act of transporting someone in a vehicle; a ride; a trip.
    Synonym: ride
    He gave me a lift to the bus station.
** 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:Accordingly, in spite of many grumbles and remonstrances from Summerlee, I ordered an additional tube, which was placed with the other in his motor-car, for he had offered me a lift to Victoria.
* (UK, Australia and New Zealand, puristic elsewhere) Mechanical device for vertically transporting goods or people between floors in a building.
    Synonym: (US, Canada, Australia) elevator
    Take the lift to the fourth floor.
* An upward force; especially, the force (generated by wings, rotary wings, or airfoils) that keeps aircraft aloft.
    Coordinate term: liftup
* (measurement) The difference in elevation between the upper pool and lower pool of a waterway, separated by lock.
* (historical slang) A thief.
** 1977, Gãmini Salgãdo, The Elizabethan Underworld, Folio Society, published 2006, page 32:The lift came into the shop dressed like a country gentleman, but was careful not to have a cloak about him, so that the tradesman could see he had no opportunity to conceal any goods about his person.
* (dance) The lifting of a dance partner into the air.
* Permanent construction with a built-in platform that is lifted vertically.
* (figurative) An improvement in mood.
** 1981 February 7, “Robert Bobby Bob (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 28, page 14:The news rocked us, especially since we were anticipating a lift for our spirits under the grim circumstances.
** 2010, Anne Baker, With a Little Luck:Just to think he had both a mistress and a wife gave him a lift. He needed a lift, for although he'd had promotion, his wasn't an exciting job.
** 2012 November 17, “Arsenal 5-2 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport‎:The dismissal of a player who left Arsenal for Manchester City before joining Tottenham gave the home players and fans a noticeable lift.
* The amount or weight to be lifted.
    What's the maximum lift of this crane?
* The space or distance through which anything is lifted.
* A rise; a degree of elevation.
    the lift of a lock in canals
* A liftgate.
* (nautical) A rope leading from the masthead to the extremity of a yard below, and used for raising or supporting the end of the yard.
* (engineering) One of the steps of a cone pulley.
* (shoemaking) A layer of leather in the heel of a shoe.
* (horology) That portion of the vibration of a balance during which the impulse is given.
** 1887, Claudius Saunier, A Treatise on Modern Horology in Theory and Practice:some measure the total lift and others only the lift on one side , a quantity which is not exactly half of the total lift
* (category theory) A morphism which some given morphism factors through; i.e. given a pair of morphisms $f:X\to Y$ and $g:Z\to Y$, a morphism $h$ such that $f=g\circ h$. (In this case $h$ is said to be a lift of $f$ via $Z$ or via $g$).
** 2001, Allen Hatcher, Algebraic Topology, page 69:For a covering space $p:{\tilde {X}}\to X$ a path $\gamma$ [i.e. a continuous map $[0,1]\to X$] in $X$ has a unique lift ${\tilde {\gamma }}$ starting at a given point of $p^{-1}(\gamma (0))$

##### Derived terms

* aerial lift
* airlift
* arse lift
* ass lift
* bike lift
* boat lift
* Brazilian butt lift
* butt lift
* button lift
* center of lift
* centre of lift
* chairlift
* cliff lift
* counterpoise-lift
* eye lift
* facelift
* faith-lift
* fireman's lift
* forklift
* give someone a lift
* gondola lift
* gum lift
* heavy lift
* heel lift
* high-lift device
* inclined lift
* incline lift
* lash lift
* lift all boats
* liftboy
* lift car
* lift club
* lift girl
* lift lockdown
* lift music
* lift net
* lift-off
* lift pass
* lift pump
* lift scheme
* liftshaft
* lift shaft
* lift surfing
* lift-to-drag ratio
* lift truck
* man lift
* platter lift
* Poma lift
* race lift
* rook lift
* scissor lift
* service lift
* ship lift
* shoe lift
* ski lift
* stair lift
* surface lift
* tail lift
* thumb a lift
* topping lift
* vertical-lift bridge
* voice lift
* wheelchair lift

##### Descendants

* → Cantonese: 𨋢 / 䢂 (lip$^1$)
* → Dutch: lift
** → Papiamentu: left
* → Malay: lif
* → Russian: лифт (lift)
** → Armenian: լիֆտ (lift)
** → Georgian: ლიფტი (lipṭi)
** → Kazakh: лифт (lift)
** → Mongolian: лифт (lift)
** → Uyghur: لىفت (lift)
** → Uzbek: lift
** → Yakut: лифт (lift)
* → Swahili: lifti
* → Swedish: lift

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

##### See also

* escalator

#### References

* The Dictionary of the Scots Language

### Etymology 2

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.

#### Noun

lift (usually uncountable, plural lifts)
* (UK dialectal, chiefly Scotland) Air.
* (UK dialectal, chiefly Scotland) The sky; the heavens; firmament; atmosphere.
** 1836, Joanna Baillie, Witchcraft, act 1, page 13:No, no, Leddy! the sun maun be up in the lift whan I venture to her den.

##### Synonyms

* (gas or vapour breathed): air
* (firmament, ethereal region surrounding the earth): atmosphere
* (the heavens, sky): welkin

#### References

* “lift”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “lift”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
* Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “lift”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
* ↑ Hlenni in Cleasby/Vigfusson An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874) p. 270
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 “lift”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* ILTF, flit

## Azerbaijani
### Noun

lift (definite accusative lifti, plural liftlər)
* lift

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “lift” in Obastan.com.

## Chinese

* For pronunciation and definitions of lift – see 𨋢 (“elevator; lift”). (This term is a variant form of 𨋢).

## Danish
### Etymology

From English lift.

### Noun

lift n (singular definite liftet, plural indefinite lift)
* The non-commercial act of transporting someone in a vehicle: ride
* boost

#### Inflection
### Noun

lift c (singular definite liften, plural indefinite lifte or lifter)
* carrycot
* elevator
* lift

#### Inflection
## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /lɪft/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: lift
* Rhymes: -ɪft

### Etymology 1

Borrowed from British English lift.

#### Noun

lift m (plural liften, diminutive liftje n)
* a lift, an elevator
* a free ride, a lift

##### Derived terms

* goederenlift
* rolstoellift
* skilift
* stoeltjeslift
* traplift

##### Related terms

* liften

##### Descendants

* → Papiamentu: left

### Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

#### Verb

lift
* inflection of liften:
** first/second/third-person singular present indicative
** imperative

## Estonian
### Etymology

From British English lift.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈlift/

### Noun

lift (genitive lifti, partitive lifti)
* lift, elevator

#### Declension
## French
### Etymology

Borrowed from English lift.

### Pronunciation

* Audio (Canada):(file)

### Noun

lift m (plural lifts)
* (obsolete) lift attendant (UK), elevator attendant (US)
** 1919, Marcel Proust, À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs:
    Sans la timidité ni la tristesse du soir de mon arrivée, je sonnai le lift qui ne restait plus silencieux pendant que je m'élevais à côté de lui dans l'ascenseur […] .
       Without the timidity or sadness of the evening I arrived, I rang for the lift attendant, who no longer remained silent as I travelled up beside him in the elevator.
* (sports) topspin

### References

* “lift”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Hungarian
### Etymology

Borrowed from British English lift.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈlift]
* Hyphenation: lift
* Rhymes: -ift

### Noun

lift (plural liftek)
* lift, elevator
    Synonym: (formal) felvonó
    Hyponym: (a slow, continuously moving lift or elevator) páternoszter

#### Derived terms

* liftes
* liftezik
* beteglift (lift/elevator for patients in hospitals)
* sílift
* teherlift
* személyzeti lift (lift/elevator for staff)

### Further reading

* lift in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language”, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

## Indonesian
### Etymology

From British English lift, 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).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈlɪf]
* Rhymes: -lɪf, -ɪf, -f
* Hyphenation: lift

### Noun

lift (plural lift-lift)
* lift, mechanical device for vertically transporting goods or people between floors in a building; an elevator.

#### Alternative forms

* lif (Standard Malay)

#### Compounds

* lift bagasi
* lift barang

### Further reading

* “lift” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

## Italian
### Etymology

Pseudo-anglicism. In sense 1, a clipping of English liftboy. In sense 2, a transferred sense of English lift.

### Noun

lift m (invariable)
* lift / elevator operator
* (tennis) topspin

#### Derived terms

* liftare

## Middle English
### Alternative forms

* luft, left, leoft

### Etymology

From Old English lyft.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /lift/

### Adjective

lift
* left

#### Descendants

* English: left
* Yola: left

#### References

* “lift, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

## Middle Scots
### Etymology 1

From Middle English lift, luft, from Old English lyft.

#### Alternative forms

* lyft, luft, lifte, lyfft

#### Noun

lift
* sky, firmament
* air, atmosphere

### Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

#### Alternative forms

* lyft

#### Noun

lift
* act of lifting

### References

* “lift”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from British English lift, French lift.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /lift/

### Noun

lift n (plural lifturi)
* elevator, lift
    Synonym: ascensor
* (tennis, table tennis, volleyball) A stroke that gives the ball an upward trajection.

#### Derived terms

* aerlift
* lift spațial

## Scots
### Alternative forms

* luft

### Etymology

Inherited from Middle Scots lift, from Middle English lift / luft, from Old English lyft.

### Noun

lift (plural lifts)
* sky, firmament

### References

* “lift”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

## Serbo-Croatian
### Etymology

From British English lift.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /lîft/

### Noun

lȉft m (Cyrillic spelling ли̏фт)
* lift, elevator
    Synonym: dȉzalo

#### Declension
## Slovak
### Etymology

Derived from British English lift.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ʎift]

### Noun

lift m inan (genitive singular liftu, nominative plural lifty, genitive plural liftov, declension pattern of dub)
* (colloquial) an elevator, lift
    Synonym: výťah

#### Derived terms

* liftový

### Further reading

* “lift”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025

## Swedish
### Etymology

Borrowed from English lift.

### Noun

lift c
* a ski lift
    Synonym: skidlift
    ta liften uppför fjällettake the ski lift up the mountain
    lära sig att åka liftlearn to ride a ski lift
* an aerial work platform
    Synonym: skylift
* a ride, a lift (for free, for example when hitchhiking)
    få lift någonstansget/hitch a ride somewhere

#### Usage notes

Compare skjuts.

#### Derived terms

* knapplift (“button lift”)
* liftkort (“lift pass”)
* replift (“ski tow”)
* skidlift (“ski lift”)
* släplift (“surface lift”)
* sittlift (“chair lift”)

#### Related terms

* lifta (“hitchhike”)
* liftare (“hitchhiker”)

#### See also

* linbana
* skjuts

### References

* lift in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* lift in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

## Uzbek
### Etymology

Borrowed from Russian лифт (lift), from British English lift.

### Noun

lift (plural liftlar)
* elevator, lift

#### Related terms

* liftchi
* liftyor

## Volapük
### Noun

lift (nominative plural lifts)
* elevator
* altitude adjustor

#### Declension

$^1$ status as a case is disputed $^2$ in later, non-classical Volapük only