Other forms: elevators
An elevator is the small moving room that carries people up and down inside a tall building. Take the elevator, the elevator is out of order.
It is the American word; British English says lift. Both are understood everywhere and neither sounds odd, but a British building will have a sign saying Lift. Two other senses: a grain elevator is a tall building for storing grain, which is where the word came from, and on an aircraft the elevators are the moving surfaces on the tail that control climb and descent. Note elevator pitch, meaning a summary short enough to give during a lift ride.
1nounelevatorA machine that carries people between the floors of a building.
“The elevator only goes to the eighth floor.”
synonyms: lift
2nountallA tall building for storing grain.
“The grain elevator is the tallest thing for forty miles.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
elevator is a lifting machine.
Also accepted in games: lift
Latin
ēlevātus
Middle English
elevaten
English
elevate
English, today
elevator
Built from
From elevate + -or. elevate comes from Middle English elevaten, from und + elevat, from Latin ēlevātus. From Middle English elevaten (“to raise up, erect; to elate, inflate (e.g. with pride); (alchemy) to vaporize; (of a bone, excressence, blood vessel) to protrude”), from elevat(e) + -en, further from Latin ēlevātus, the perfect passive participle of ēlevō (“to raise, lift up”), from ex- (“out”) + levō (“to make light, to lift”), from levis (“light”) + -ō; see levity and lever.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA