Lift

To raise; to take up.

To lift a promissory note (a written commitment to pay a sum of money on a certain date) is to terminate the obligation by paying its amount.

To lift the bar of the STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS is to remove, by some sufficient act or ACKNOWLEDGMENT, the obstruction that it interposes. For example, some states will not permit an action to be instituted on a debt owed after ten years from the date of the debt. This is a ten-year statute of limitations. If the debtor acknowledges in writing that he or she owes the debt and will pay it on a certain date, this conduct lifts the bar of the statute of limitations so that the debtor can be sued on the debt for another ten years.