A hoist is a lifting device used in material-handling systems whose defining job is to raise and lower a load along the vertical direction under control. It does this using a flexible member — a wire rope, chain, or rope — wound over a drum or through a sheave/pulley arrangement, together with a load hook. The lifting effort may be supplied manually (hand-chain hoist, lever/ratchet hoist) or by power (electric or pneumatic hoist), and a braking or self-locking mechanism holds the load and lets it be lowered smoothly.

Hence the correct description is lifting and lowering loads vertically with controlled movement.

• Moving loads horizontally between different workstations is the function of conveyors, trolleys, or the cross-travel of a crane bridge, not of the hoist itself; the hoist supplies only the up/down motion.
• Sorting materials by size is a screening/sorting operation performed by separators or sorting systems, unrelated to a hoist's lifting duty.
• Rotating loads for alignment is done by turntables, manipulators, or positioners; a plain hoist raises and lowers rather than rotates.

In practice a hoist is frequently mounted on a trolley running along an overhead beam, and the combination provides both vertical lift (hoist) and horizontal traverse (trolley/bridge), which is how an overhead/EOT crane is built up — but the hoist element's own function remains purely vertical lifting and lowering.