Neither lift nor elevator (in the sense of box/cage designed to carry people to higher floors of a building) are included in Webster’s 1828 dictionary.

In the 1850s in the USA, Elisha Otis's company began producing the first safety elevators that prevented the cage/compartment falling, even in the event of cable failure.

In the UK Peter Ellis obtained a patent in 1866 for "an improved lift, hoist, or mechanical elevator" and installed the first elevators that could be described as paternoster lifts at Oriel Chambers in Liverpool, UK two years later. This last example seems to suggest that, at that time, both of the words 'elevator' and 'lift' were in use in Britain.