Elevator \El"e*va`tor\, n. [L., one who raises up, a deliverer:
cf. F. ['e]l['e]vateur.]
One who, or that which, raises or lifts up anything; as:
(a) 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.
(b) A cage or platform 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.
(c) A building for elevating, storing, and discharging,
grain.
(d) (Anat.) A muscle which serves to raise a part of the
body, as the leg or the eye.
(e) (Surg.) An instrument for raising a depressed portion of
a bone.
Elevator head, leg, & boot, the boxes in which the
upper pulley, belt, and lower pulley, respectively, run in
a grain elevator.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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