▪ I. heist slang (orig. U.S.).
(haɪst)
[Repr. U.S. local pronunc. of hoist v. and n.]
A hold-up, a robbery; also attrib. and Comb. Also as v., to hold up, rob, steal. So ˈheister, a robber, a hijacker; a shoplifter. Cf. hist v.2 2, hoist v. 6 and n. 5.
| 1927 Dialect Notes V. 449 Heister, n. (1) A nickname. Suggested etymon, Ger. ‘heissen’. (2) A shoplifter. 1930 E. D. Sullivan Chicago Surrenders (1931) xiv. 229 Any such giant ‘heist’. 1931 [see hoist v. 6]. 1943 P. Cheyney You can always Duck xi. 170 If you think I'm gonna be heisted by a cheap thug like you, you made a mistake. 1947 S. J. Perelman Westward Ha! (1949) x. 123 His new ballpoint fountain pen..had been heisted by the attendants. 1953 ‘S. Ransome’ Drag Dark (1954) ii. 22 Any heister..would face a bit of a problem in moving his loot. 1955 D. W. Maurer in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxiv. 18 Very peaceful when he ain't on the heist. Ibid. 92 Thus a heist mob is one which brooks no interference and robs the victim willy-nilly. 1965 Punch 11 Aug. 199/2 Six years ago Jim Tempest was one of a bunch of tearaways heisting cars round the North Circular. 1967 ‘D. Shannon’ Chance to Kill (1968) i. 7 The pair of heist boys had been busy... Since ten days they had..hit four liquor stores, three small markets, two bars, and a drugstore, for a total take of around eighteen hundred bucks. 1968 ‘E. Trevor’ Place for Wicked ii. 22 A heist was when you took a motor with the idea of doing a repaint and flogging it with a bent log-book you'd got from a breaker. |
▪ II. heist
obs. Sc. f. hest.