elevator

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A platform or an enclosure raised and lowered in a vertical shaft to transport people or freight.
2. n. The enclosure or platform with its operating equipment, motor, cables, and accessories.
3. n. A movable control surface, usually attached to the horizontal stabilizer of an aircraft, that is used to produce motion up or down.
4. n. A mechanism, often with buckets or scoops attached to a conveyor, used for hoisting materials.
5. n. A granary equipped with devices for hoisting and discharging grain.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who or that which raises, lifts, or exalts. Specifically
2. n. In anat.: A muscle which raises a part of the body, as the lip or eyelid: same as levator.
3. n. Same as extensor.
4. n. A surgical instrument used for raising a depressed or fractured part of the skull. Also called elevatory.
5. n. In mech., a hoisting apparatus; a lift. A car or cage for lifting and lowering passengers or freight in a hoistway; in a broad sense, the entire hoisting apparatus, including the shaft or well, the cage, and the motor. See hoisting-engine.
6. n. A building containing one or more mechanical elevators, especially a warehouse for the storage of grain.
7. n. In surgery: An instrument for extracting the stump of a tooth.
8. n. Same as repositor.

Wiktionary

1. n. US Permanent construction with a built-in platform that is lifted vertically.
2. n. A silo used for storing wheat, corn or other grain (grain elevator)
3. n. A control surface of an aircraft responsible for controling the pitching motion of the machine.
4. n. Trademark for a type of shoe having an insert lift to make the wearer appear taller.
5. n. A dental instrument used to pry up ("elevate") teeth in difficult extractions.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who, or that which, raises or lifts up anything.
2. n. 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.
3. n. 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.
4. n. A building for elevating, storing, and discharging, grain.
5. n. (Anat.) A muscle which serves to raise a part of the body, as the leg or the eye.
6. n. (Surg.) An instrument for raising a depressed portion of a bone.
7. n. (Aëronautics) 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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the airfoil on the tailplane of an aircraft that makes it ascend or descend
2. n. lifting device consisting of a platform or cage that is raised and lowered mechanically in a vertical shaft in order to move people from one floor to another in a building