Hireling
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An employee who is hired, often to perform unpleasant tasks with little independence. derogatory, usually
"Is there not an appointed time to man vpon earth? are not his dayes alſo like the dayes of an hireling?"
- 2 a person who works only for money wordnet
- 3 Someone who does a job purely for money, rather than out of interest in the work itself. derogatory, usually
"[…]it may bee truely affirmed, that no kinde of men loue buſineſſe for it ſelfe, but thoſe that are learned; for other perſons loue it for profite; as an hireling that loues the worke for the wages;"
- 4 A horse for hire.
"In the afternoon they went to a neighbouring livery stables to look for hirellings."
- 5 A prostitute. obsolete
Example
More examples"And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the service of the Phase; no foreigner shall eat of it. But every bought servant shall be circumcised, and so shall eat. The stranger and the hireling shall not eat thereof."
Etymology
From Middle English hirlyng, from Old English hȳrling (“hireling, employee”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūʀijuling. Cognate with West Frisian hierling, Dutch huurling (“hireling, mercenary”), German Low German Hüürling, German Heuerling. By surface analysis, hire + -ling.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.