Recruit
//ɹɪˈkɹut// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A supply of anything wasted or exhausted; a reinforcement.
- 2 any new member or supporter (as in the armed forces) wordnet
- 3 A person enlisted for service in the army; a newly enlisted soldier.
- 4 a recently enlisted soldier wordnet
- 5 A hired worker
"These new recruits were hired after passing the interviews"
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- 6 A new adult or breeding-age member of a certain population.
Verb
- 1 To enroll or enlist new members or potential employees on behalf of an employer, organization, sports team, the military, etc.
"We need to recruit more admin staff to deal with the massive surge in popularity of our products"
- 2 cause to assemble or enlist in military wordnet
- 3 To supply with new men, as an army; to fill up or make up by enlistment; also, to muster
"the army was recruited for a campaign"
- 4 seek to employ wordnet
- 5 To replenish, renew, or reinvigorate by fresh supplies; to remedy a lack or deficiency in. archaic
"Her cheeks glow the brighter, recruiting their colour."
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- 6 register formally as a participant or member wordnet
- 7 To become an adult or breeding-age member of a population. intransitive
- 8 To prompt a protein, leucocyte. etc. to intervene in a given region of the body.
- 9 To recuperate; to gain health, flesh, spirits, or the like. dated, intransitive
"Lean cattle recruit in fresh pastures."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The papers found lots of monkey business when they investigated the Recruit scandal."
Etymology
From French recruter (as a verb).
Related phrases
More for "recruit"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.