noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A person who provides labor to a company or another person.

   "One way to encourage your employees to work harder is by giving them incentives."

2. 2
   a worker who is hired to perform a job wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

;assistantassociateblue collar workerblue-collar workerbreadwinner

Antonyms

All antonyms

bosschiefcustomerservant

Example

More examples

"Every boss has his or her favorite employee."

Etymology

From employ + -ee. First attested in the early 19th century, possibly modeled after French employé.

Related phrases

W-2 employeebusiness-to-employeeemployee benefitemployee handbookghost employee

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.