Other forms: heists
A heist is a daring, carefully planned robbery. A bank heist, pull off a heist, the heist went wrong.
It is chiefly American and belongs above all to films: the heist movie is a genre with its own rules, in which a team is assembled, a plan is explained and something goes wrong at the last moment. In news reporting it is used for large and audacious thefts, especially of art or jewellery. Note that heist is a variant of hoist, and that the word carries a certain admiration a plain robbery does not.
1nounheistA daring, carefully planned robbery.
“Thieves tunnelled into the bank vault over a holiday weekend in a daring heist.”
heist is a robbery.
Heist is a dialect pronunciation of hoist, which was old thieves' slang for shoplifting — from the idea of lifting something. American English kept the pronunciation as a separate word.
Probably pronunciation variation of hoist.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA