One who, or that which, raises or lifts up anything. [1913 Webster]
A mechanical contrivance, usually an endless belt or chain with a series of scoops or buckets, for transferring grain to an upper loft for storage. [1913 Webster]
A cage or platform (called an elevator car) and the hoisting machinery in a hotel, warehouse, mine, etc., for conveying persons, goods, etc., to or from different floors or levels; -- called in England a lift; the cage or platform itself. [1913 Webster]
A building for elevating, storing, and discharging, grain. [1913 Webster]
A muscle which serves to raise a part of the body, as the leg or the eye. [1913 Webster]
An instrument for raising a depressed portion of a bone. [1913 Webster]
A movable plane or group of planes used to control the altitude or fore-and-aft poise or inclination of an airship or flying machine. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

Elevator head, Elevator leg, Elevator boot, the boxes in which the upper pulley, belt, and lower pulley, respectively, run in a grain elevator. [1913 Webster] -- Elevator shoes, shoes having unusually thick soles and heels, designed to make a person appear taller than he or she actually is. [PJC]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

elevator, n.
1 a hoisting machine.
2 Aeron. the movable part of a tailplane for changing the pitch of an aircraft.
3 US a = LIFT n. 3. b a place for lifting and storing quantities of grain.
4 that which elevates, esp. a muscle that raises a limb.

Etymology

mod.L (as ELEVATE)

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ROGET THESAURUS

elevator

Elevation

N elevation, raising, erection, lift, sublevation, upheaval, sublimation, exaltation, prominence, lever, crane, derrick, windlass, capstan, winch, dredge, dredger, dredging machine, dumbwaiter, elevator, escalator, lift, elevated, stilted, attollent, rampant, on stilts, on the shoulders of, on one's legs, on one's hind legs.

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