Airlift

//ˈɛə.lɪft// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The transportation of troops, civilians or supplies by air, especially in an emergency.
  2. 2
    transportation of people or goods by air (especially when other means of access are unavailable) wordnet
  3. 3
    Such a flight.
  4. 4
    A pipe that is used to suck up objects from the sea bed.
Verb
  1. 1
    To transport (troops etc) in an airlift. transitive

    "The mountaineer who fell down a crevasse had to be airlifted out."

  2. 2
    fly people or goods to or from places not accessible by other means wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aeroplaneair bridgeair expressairfreightairplaneasportation

Example

More examples

"And that's when the airlift began – when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of Berlin."

Etymology

From air + lift; compare sealift.

Related phrases

non-forecast airliftsea bed

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.