Employ
noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being an employee; employment.
"The school district has six thousand teachers in its employ."
- 2 the state of being employed or having a job wordnet
- 3 An occupation. archaic
"Still he wrote on. He was too much engrossed in his own charmed employ not to be insensible for a time to all external influences: he might suffer afterwards, but now his mind was his kingdom."
- 4 The act of employing someone or making use of something; employment. obsolete
"Notwithstanding the employ of general and local bleeding, blisters, &c., the patient died on the fourth day after entrance."
- 1 To retain (someone) as an employee.
"Our company employs hundreds of people."
- 2 put into service; make work or employ for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose wordnet
- 3 To provide (someone) with a new job; to hire. rare
"Yesterday our local garage employed a new mechanic."
- 4 engage or hire for work wordnet
- 5 To use (someone or something) for a job or task.
"The burglar employed a jemmy to get in."
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- 6 To make busy; to preoccupy.
"Let it not enter in your minde of loue: / Be merry, and imploy your chiefeſt thoughts / To courtſhip, and ſuch faire oſtents of loue / As ſhall conueniently become you there;"
Example
More examples"You must employ your capital well."
Etymology
From late Middle English emploien, imploien, emplien (“to apply to a specific purpose”), from Anglo-Norman emploier, Old French emploiier (“to entangle, fabricate, to make use of”), ultimately from Latin implicāre (“to infold, entangle, involve, engage”), from in- (“in”) + plicāre (“to fold”). Doublet of imply and implicate.
Borrowed from French emploi (“job, employment”), the deverbal from employer (“to put to use, to employ”), first attested in the late 17th century.