Elevator

How to spell elevator

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce elevator

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does elevator mean?

1. nounA platform or compartment that carries people or goods between the floors of a building (called a lift in British usage).

Elevator in a sentence

• The elevator in the office tower was out of service all morning.

• They loaded the heavy boxes into the freight elevator at the back of the warehouse.

Where does elevator come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb levare, meaning 'to raise' or 'to lift', which itself grew from levis, meaning 'light' in weight; to lift something is, after all, to make it seem lighter. From levare English inherited a family of related words, including 'elevate', 'levity', and 'lever', all carrying the idea of lifting or lightness. 'Elevator' was formed as an agent noun, literally 'something that raises', and was used from the early 1600s for various lifting devices, including machinery for hoisting grain. When the passenger lift was developed in the United States in the mid 1800s, 'elevator' became its standard name there, while British English settled on 'lift' instead. The deceptive part of the spelling is the unstressed middle vowel and the ending, which sounds like '-er' but is actually written '-or', following the Latin agent pattern.

How the word is built

• e- (out, from Latin ex)
• lev (from levare: to raise, lift)
• -ate (verb stem)
• -or (agent suffix: thing that does)