Other forms: hoisted, hoisting, hoists
To hoist is to haul something heavy upward — on a rope, with a machine, or by main effort. A sail going up a mast, a flag up a pole, a toddler hoisted onto a pair of shoulders.
Hoist is about weight and effort, so you hoist a load and a beam, not a teacup. As a noun a hoist is the machine that does the lifting: an engine hoist in a garage, a patient hoist in a hospital. The word is at home at sea and on building sites, and anywhere else it sounds a little muscular and old-fashioned. The one phrase everyone half knows is "hoist with his own petard", from Shakespeare — blown up by the bomb you planted yourself.
1verbhoistTo raise something heavy, especially with ropes or a machine.
“They hoisted the piano through the first-floor window.”
2verbeffortTo lift something up with effort.
“She hoisted the rucksack onto her back.”
3nounmachineA machine for lifting heavy things.
“The garage has a hoist at the back for engine work.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: lift, raise
Hoist is a sailor's borrowing. English first had hoise, from Middle Dutch hisen, "to hoist", and hoist grew out of its past-tense forms until it took over the whole verb. The same Low Countries word travelled round the coast of Europe: French hisser, Spanish izar, Italian issare, Portuguese içar — half the continent hauled its sails up with it.
Middle Dutch
hisen — to hoist
English, today
hoist
Built from
Alteration of earlier hoise (“to hoist”), apparently based on the past tense forms, from Middle Dutch hisen (“to hoist”). Compare modern Dutch hijsen (“to hoist”), German hissen (“to hoist”), Danish hejse (“to hoist”). Compare also French hisser (“to hoist”), Galician isar (“to hoist”), Spanish izar (“to hoist”), Catalan hissar (“to hoist”), Italian issare (“to hoist”), Portuguese içar (“to hoist”), Sicilian jisari (“to hoist”), all borrowed from a gem source.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA