An elevator is a platform or compartment housed in a vertical shaft that moves people or goods up and down between the floors of a building. When you step into an elevator, press a button, and feel that slight lurch as it starts moving, you're using a machine that transformed how humans build cities.

Before elevators, tall buildings were impractical. Nobody wanted to climb ten flights of stairs just to reach their apartment or office. The top floors were actually the least desirable because of all that climbing. But once Elisha Otis invented a safety brake in 1853 that prevented elevators from falling if their cables broke, buildings could safely reach toward the sky. Suddenly those top floors became the most desirable, with better views and fresher air.

Today's elevators use either cables and pulleys (traction elevators) or hydraulic pistons (hydraulic elevators) to move their cars up and down. Some of the fastest elevators in the world can travel over 40 miles per hour, whisking passengers to the top of a skyscraper in under a minute.

The word can also mean something that lifts or raises. A grain elevator is a tall building where farmers store grain, lifting it with conveyor belts to fill large storage bins.