British and American English name the same things differently. What Americans call an 'elevator', the British call a 'lift'. What's the American word for the British 'lift'?

The American word for what the British call a "lift" is "elevator" — both describe the same enclosed compartment that carries people vertically between floors. The vocabulary split reflects how British and American English drifted apart over time, with each side developing its own everyday terms for common inventions and objects.

"Stairs" and "escalator" both move people between floors but are unrelated to the lift/elevator pair: stairs are fixed steps requiring no mechanism, and an escalator is a moving staircase, a distinct invention from the enclosed lift/elevator car.

Other British-American pairs follow this same pattern of shared meaning, different word: flat/apartment, lorry/truck, boot/trunk, and biscuit/cookie all describe identical things while sounding completely foreign to speakers on the other side of the Atlantic.