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
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heistsimple
-
heistssimple
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have heistedperfect
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has heistedperfect
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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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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:
Other pieces stolen in the heist remain missing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
They reportedly entered the library by its main entrance mid-morning and headed towards the nearest metro station following the heist.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Hence her latest caper, which begins with a mission to track down a vintage desk and turns on a dime into a heist tied to a cache of gold.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
The Apollo Gallery of Paris's Louvre Museum, where French crown jewels worth 88 million euros were stolen in 2025 in a brazen heist, will reopen to the public on Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 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
Past heists relied more on novel malware and identity fraud, but the April 1 campaign leaned heavily on actual human interaction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 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
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
That’s a cliff-falling 65% drop from the movie’s Fri.–Sun. total a week ago, when it heisted $97.4 million on its way to a holiday weekend total of $117 million.
From Time ● Jun. 2, 2013
The lid was heisted, and mighty well it was.
From Successful Recitations by Alfred H. (Alfred Henry) Miles
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.
