December 18, 1997

heist

What is the word "heist" derived from? Has it anything to do with "hoist" as in "hoist 'em up"?

Yes. The word heist, which is used chiefly in senses referring to robberies, is a pronunciation variant of hoist.

The pronunciation currently represented by the spelling heist has been common for centuries in dialectal speech, but was rarely represented orthographically before the nineteenth century. Some spellings that are found for the pronunciation are hist, h'ist, hyst, hyste, and our heist.

The word hoist (thus spelled) and its derived words (hoister, etc.) have been used in the criminal underworld to refer to burglaries, shoplifting, and the like since the early eighteenth century. These senses did not become common until the 1920s, and when they did, the spelling heist (and its associated pronunciation) was the predominant one for the senses. Now, heist is associated exclusively with the various underworld senses of the term and is popularly perceived as a different word from hoist.

Semantically, heist refers to the "lifting" of the stolen goods, rather than the lifting of one's hands in the air during a robbery, as you seem to suggest.