Word.ws English Dictionary

hoisted

/ˈhɔɪstɪd/

hoisted is the simple past and past participle of hoist.

Meaning of hoist

Verb

hoist (third-person singular simple present hoists, present participle hoisting, simple past and past participle hoisted or hoist)

  1. (transitive) To raise; to lift; to elevate (especially, to raise or lift to a desired elevation, by means of tackle or pulley, said of a sail, a flag, a heavy package or weight).
    • For tis the ſport to haue the enginer / Hoiſt with his ovvne petar, an't ſhall goe hard / But I vvill delue one yard belovve their mines, / And blovve them at the Moone: […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...
  2. (figuratively, often, transitive) To lift a trophy or similar prize into the air in celebration of a victory.
    • And when skipper Richie McCaw hoisted the Webb Ellis Trophy high into the night, a quarter of a century of hurt was blown away in an explosion of fireworks and cheering.2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport
  3. (historical, transitive) To lift someone up to be flogged.
    • Again Pilatus answered them, What shall I do to the Jew’s king? They again cried out and said, Hoist him! Then said Pilatus, What evil did he? They so much the more cried, Hoist him!1881, H.C. Leonard, A Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Version of St. Mark’s Gospel, page 83
  4. (intransitive) To be lifted up.
  5. (transitive) To extract (code) from a loop construct as part of optimization.
  6. (slang, transitive) To steal.
    • When you’ve reached neutral territory, when you’ve stashed the loot hoisted from the warlord’s mansion – well, he didn't have much use for it any more, did he?2006, Margaret Atwood, The Tent

See all 12 meanings of hoist

Words formed from hoisted

Phrases with hoisted

Words that rhyme with hoisted

Questions about hoisted

What is hoisted the simple past and past participle of?
Hoisted is the simple past and past participle of hoist.
How do you pronounce hoisted?
Hoisted is pronounced /ˈhɔɪstɪd/.

Words near hoisted in the dictionary

  1. hoist the white flag
  2. hoist with one's own petard
  3. hoistable
  4. hoistaway
  5. hoistaways
  6. hoisted
  7. hoisted by one's own petard
  8. hoisted on one's own petard
  9. hoisted with one's own petard
  10. hoister
  11. hoisters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hoisted (page history and authors); 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hoisted.ogg.

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