lift

   1. to steal

   Usually of pilfering, from the casual removal:

    Billy can lift your jock strap, and you wouldn't feel a thing. (Weverka, 1973 — Billy was an adept pickpocket)

   Specifically of plagiarism in the 20th century, of picking pockets in the 19th century, and of disinterring corpses for sale in 18th-century Scotland:

    Resurrectionists... who were as ready to lay their murdering hands on the living, as to lift the dead. (S. R. Whitehead, 1876)

   A lifter is a thief, usually by picking pockets. Shoplifter, a thief from a store, has been in use since the 17th century and the verb, to shoplift, since the 19th:

    I know it's bad for them, but thousands of people shoplift. (D. Francis, 1981)

   2. the feeling after an ingestion of illegal narcotics

   Literally, a feeling of wellbeing or encouragement:

    'Want a lift?' 'I can use something,' Janette said. She took a small vial from the bag. (Robbins, 1981)

   3. an arrest

   Mainly police jargon, from removing a suspect from circulation:

    The lift and then the interrogation, the interrogation and then the imprisonment. (Seymour, 1982)

   Also as a verb in the same sense.

   4. a thick sole and heel to enhance height

   Only the subject of evasion when worn by a male:

    Beware Greeks wearing lifts. {Financial Times, 1988, quoting a quip about the presidential candidate Dukakis who was so shod, the motto being after — long after-Virgil's timeo danaos et dona ferentes, 'I fear the Greeks even when they are bearing gifts')