Word.ws English Dictionary

Hills Hoist

Hills Hoist noun: a rotary clothes line with adjustable height by means of a rotating handle.

Noun (1)

Hills Hoist (plural Hills Hoists)

  1. (Australia) A rotary clothes line with adjustable height by means of a rotating handle.
    • A Hills Hoist was set into the concrete. It was covered with a lush choko vine. Hazel always claimed the Hills Hoist was the perfect plant support. “If you want to do some pruning, you just wind it up and spin it round.”1989, Helen Townsend, Miranda′s Album, page 52
    • Like most Australians I have spent much of my life in the suburbs. I was raised in the Perth suburb of Karrinyup. A quarter acre, a terracotta roof, a facade knocked out by some bored government architect, a Hills Hoist in the back yard and picket fences between us and the neighbours.1993, Tim Winton, Land's Edge, page 8

Noun (2) capitalized: Hills hoist

Hills hoist (plural Hills hoists)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Hills Hoist.
    • From there he had a view over the sodden sloping gardens and the Hills hoists of the neighbours.[…]Next door there were rows of nappies on the line, dripping rain, and overhead was the Storey Bridge, like a bigger, flatter Hills hoist.1996, Margaret Simons, The Truth Teller, page 176
    • Indeed, her Hills hoist may have made her backyard the object of envy for others. Clotheslines feature prominently in the letters of correspondents to the Museum of Australia′s ‘Backyards’ project, and not just the Hills hoist but also the earlier lines.2008, Katie Holmes, Sue Martin, Susan K. Martin, Kylie Mirmohamadi, Reading the Garden: The Settlement of Australia, page 177

Forms of Hills Hoist

pluralHills Hoists
alternative formHills hoist
pluralHills hoists

Origin of Hills Hoist

From genitive of Hill (“a surname”) (with elided apostrophe) + hoist (“lift”); from the trade name of the product manufactured from 1945 by Lance Hill of Adelaide, South Australia.

Questions about Hills Hoist

What does Hills Hoist mean?
Hills Hoist means a rotary clothes line with adjustable height by means of a rotating handle.
What part of speech is Hills Hoist?
Hills Hoist is a noun.
What is the plural of Hills Hoist?
The plural of Hills Hoist is Hills Hoists.

Words near Hills Hoist in the dictionary

  1. hilloes
  2. hilloing
  3. hillos
  4. hills
  5. hills and valleys
  6. Hills Hoist
  7. Hills Hoists
  8. hills of beans
  9. hills to die on
  10. Hillsboro
  11. Hillsborough

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Hills Hoist (page history and authors); Hills hoist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 Hills Hoist.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Hills Hoist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hills_hoist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.