Plural of forklift; powered vehicles with a pronged arm for lifting and carrying heavy loads, commonly used in warehouses and construction sites.
From 'fork' (the pronged lifting mechanism) plus 'lift' meaning to raise upward. This is a 20th-century compound noun that became standard in industrial vocabulary.
The invention of the forklift revolutionized warehousing in the 1920s—suddenly one person could move what once required five workers, fundamentally changing labor demands and industrial efficiency worldwide!
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