heist

plural heists

1. countableuncountableA robbery or burglary, especially from an institution such as a bank or museum.

   In 1990, at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, two men dressed as police officers pulled off the largest art heist in history, with 13 artworks, including three Rembrandts, and a Vermeer, that have never been found.

   2025 October 20, Jacqui Palumbo, Caitlin Danaher, “Museum heists have changed. Why the Louvre robbery is a worrying escalation”, in CNN, archived from the original on 09 Dec 2025

   2 more examples

   The audacious hijacking in Paris of a van carrying the baggage of a Saudi prince to his private jet is obviously an embarrassment to the French capital, whose ultra-high-end boutiques have suffered a spate of heists in recent months.

   2014 August 21, “A brazen heist in Paris [print version: International New York Times, 22 August 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 17 Dec 2020

   The furious reaction in Germany after 200,000 protective masks destined for Berlin mysteriously went missing in Thailand and were allegedly redirected to the US is a case in point. There is no solid proof Trump approved the heist. But it’s the sort of thing he would do – or so people believe.

   2020 April 12, Simon Tisdall, “US's global reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump's coronavirus response”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 27 Apr 2022

2. countableuncountableA fiction genre in which a heist is central to the plot; a work in such a genre.

   The crew resemble typical heist characters[.]

   2014, Daryl Lee, The Heist Film: Stealing With Style, page 69

   2 more examples

   It is a conventional heist play in which the drama is created less through the characters' actions than through the fact of one of them having a gun.

   2002, Theatre Record, volume 22, numbers 10-18, page 1177

   The Bank Job is also the first proper Jason Statham movie since his days banging about in Guy Ritchie's early heists.

   2008 March 6, Robert Wilonsky, “Fast and Loose”, in Riverfront Times, volume 32, number 10, page 28

present singular third person heists · participle present heisting · participle past heisted · past heisted

1. transitiveTo steal, rob, or hold up (something).

plural Heists

1. A surname.