Lifted

How to spell lifted

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lifted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lifted mean?

1. verbPast tense of lift: raised something to a higher position, or removed or ended something such as a ban or restriction.

Lifted in a sentence

• The crane lifted the steel beam onto the roof.

• The government finally lifted the travel ban last month.

Where does lifted come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'lift', which English took from Old Norse around the 1200s. The Norse source was 'lypta', meaning 'to raise into the air', and it is closely related to the Old Norse noun 'lopt' meaning 'air' or 'sky', the same root that gave English the word 'loft'. So at heart, to lift something was to move it up toward the loft or the air above. Over the centuries the verb broadened well beyond physical raising: restrictions could be 'lifted' (removed), spirits could be 'lifted' (cheered), and informally something copied wholesale could be said to be 'lifted'. The regular '-ed' ending keeps the spelling tidy, though the doubled hidden trap is simply remembering the single 't' of 'lift' before the ending.

How the word is built

• lift (root: to raise)
• -ed (past-tense/past-participle suffix)