heist
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to take unlawfully, especially in a robbery or holdup; steal.
to heist a million dollars' worth of jewels.
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to rob or hold up.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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heistsimple
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heistssimple
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have heistedperfect
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has heistedperfect
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am heistingprogressive
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are heistingprogressive
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is heistingprogressive
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have been heistingperfect progressive
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has been heistingperfect progressive
Past
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heistedsimple
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had heistedperfect
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was heistingprogressive
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were heistingprogressive
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had been heistingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of heist
1925–30, alteration of hoist
Explanation
When a man with a gun walks into a bank and says, "Give me all your money," that's a heist or a robbery at gunpoint. Heist, pronounced "hīst," is a slang word for an armed robbery. It's also a slang word used to describe the act of stealing or breaking into someone's house to steal their stuff. In other words, it's a burglary. Heist can also act as a verb: "If you've heisted a diamond ring, you've stolen it."
Vocabulary lists containing heist
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
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Six of Crows
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All the Bright Places
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was the Peanut Butter heist that won me over.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, “Inception”—a script Nolan worked on for about a decade—is a heady heist film about “extractors” who invade other people’s dreams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
“You know how in the spy thriller or the heist movie, you’re introduced to the crew at the beginning,” Obama wrote.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2026
New reads abound for your vacation tote throughout the weeks of July, with fiction picks featuring a Carnival cruise casualty, a highly entertaining jewel heist at the Waldorf-Astoria, and a Soviet-era madcap adventure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
It felt weird leaving the others behind, but they were fighting so we could attempt this heist.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
In one of the NBA’s all-time heists, Pelinka brought the then-25-year-old Slovenian superstar to L.A. from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for essentially an aging and injury-prone Anthony Davis and just one first-round draft pick.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2026
The heists have prompted calls for better security to protect valuable artworks.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
"She would do anything for her family - and she joins them as a way to protect them from themselves and the real danger that is involved in heists."
From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026
Two heists made in broad daylight present a scarier challenge for museums worn out by soup-throwing protesters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 14, 2025
Art heists are almost always the work of amateurs, and there’s nothing dashing or romantic about these thieves.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
The culprit: the big internet and social media platforms that grab news outlets’ work without paying for it and build their own ad programs around the heisted articles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2024
The saga of Kelly’s heisted honeybees would rattle the beekeeper and the clients who sought his specially bred bees.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 13, 2021
During the latter stages of the LP’s production, the Beatles famously heisted one of EMI Studios’ experimental eight-track machines and produced several tracks with that more expansive sound palette.
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2018
“Fake and so plastic, you’ve heisted the magic/ You’ve taken the drums and the accent you rapped in/ You’re branded ‘hip-hop,’ it’s so fascist and backwards.”
From Time ● Jan. 22, 2016
The lid was heisted, and mighty well it was.
From Successful Recitations by Miles, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
The instrumental track "You Wish" beautifully invokes the spirit of Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" without ever wholesale heisting the original.
From Time Magazine Archive
In fact, heisting Manhattan turns out to be less farfetched than it sounds.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
