Airlifted

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Moved people or goods through the use of airplanes or helicopters
2. Carried out the transfer of items or individuals via air transport vehicles
3. Transferred passengers or cargo to a destination by using aircraft

Etymology: "Airlifted" is the past tense and past participle of "airlift", so the history belongs to the verb itself. The verb is formed by joining "air" and "lift", a plain compound with no borrowing from another language. "Lift" in the sense of carrying goods or people from one place to another goes back to Old English roots, and "air" comes from Latin through French. Put together, the pair describes lifting cargo or people by aircraft rather than by ship or road. The compound follows the pattern of "sealift", which names the transport of goods by sea. "Airlift" appears to have been made on that model, substituting aircraft for ships, and the parallel is the clearest clue to how the word was built.

Synonyms: transported, shuttled, evacuated, flown, delivered

Antonyms: grounded, dropped, left behind, abandoned, rejected