heist
Americannoun
-
heists
plural
verb (used with object)
-
heists,
present (3rd person singular)
-
heisted,
past participle, past
-
heisting
present participle
-
to take unlawfully, especially in a robbery or holdup; steal.
to heist a million dollars' worth of jewels.
-
to rob or hold up.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
heistsimple
-
heistssimple
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have heistedperfect
-
has heistedperfect
-
am heistingprogressive
-
are heistingprogressive
-
is heistingprogressive
-
have been heistingperfect progressive
-
has been heistingperfect progressive
Past
-
heistedsimple
-
had heistedperfect
-
was heistingprogressive
-
were heistingprogressive
-
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:
In August, paintings by Renoir, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse were stolen from a museum in Italy, in a heist that lasted just three minutes.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Fashion heist films watched in a black box theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
PARIS—A pair of thieves stole four artworks from a French museum dedicated to the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in a sign of the country’s struggle to protect its cultural heritage following last year’s Louvre heist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
The four suspected Louvre robbers have been arrested, but the jewels they are accused of grabbing in the seven-minute heist have still not been found.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
By foiling the heist, Hale had reinforced his reputation for upholding law and order.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
The incident is the latest in a string of museum heists across Europe that have led to a growing number of priceless works disappearing from public view.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Constrained by global sanctions that cut the country off from the international banking system, North Korea’s spies must generate their own funding through crypto heists, former Kim regime officials say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Not since Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief” has there been a more charismatic and lovable “villain,” not to mention some pretty great heists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The heists have prompted calls for better security to protect valuable artworks.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
She wasn’t investigating the jewelry heists and grave robbing I’d read about in the newspapers.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
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 Alfred H. (Alfred Henry) Miles
In fact, heisting Manhattan turns out to be less farfetched than it sounds.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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.
