employ
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
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.
Inflected forms:
form: employs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: employing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: employed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: employed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: imploy
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: employs
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: imploy
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: To retain (someone) as an employee.
pos: verb
examples: Our company employs hundreds of people.
Andrew Houſtoun and Adam Muſhet, being Tackſmen of the Excize, did Imploy Thomas Rue to be their Collector, and gave him a Sallary of 30. pound Sterling for a year.
Charles had not been employed above six months at Darracott Place, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.
The site—which was established in its current form in 2009—employs 60 people and says it gets 12 million visitors a month.
gloss: To provide (someone) with a new job; to hire.
pos: verb
tags: rare
examples: Yesterday our local garage employed a new mechanic.
The management, who were close personal friends, had just employed a new chef.
gloss: To use (someone or something) for a job or task.
pos: verb
examples: The burglar employed a jemmy to get in.
Valiant Othello, we muſt straight employ you, / Againſt the generall Enemy Ottoman.
This is a day in which the thoughts[…]ought to be employed on serious subjects.
As to eleemoſynary corporations, by the dotation the founder and his heirs are of common right the legal viſitors, to ſee that that property is rightly employed, which would otherwiſe have deſcended to the viſitor himſelf: […]
Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.
Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.
That insight may not seem surprising, given war's dampening effects on economic activity. But the research employed a new tool for recognizing the effects.
Whatever they employ, I’ll exploit, make null and void!
gloss: To make busy; to preoccupy.
pos: verb
examples: 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;
I heard the woods, and distant waters, roar; / Or heard them not, as happy as a Boy: / The pleasant season did my heart employ:
gloss: The state of being an employee; employment.
pos: noun
examples: The school district has six thousand teachers in its employ.
If Siamese in the employ of British subjects offend against the laws of their country,
“And so you see, sir,” said I, “there is something to be said upon my side; and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentlefolks. But I am still waiting your opinion.”
gloss: An occupation.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: 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.
gloss: The act of employing someone or making use of something; employment.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Notwithstanding the employ of general and local bleeding, blisters, &c., the patient died on the fourth day after entrance.
Synonyms: apply
appoint
bestow
brook
commission
commit
employ
exercise
exploit
handle
make use
ply
put to use
spend
suborn
take advantage of
use
utilize
wield
Antonyms: discard
disuse
shun
surrender
Related words: apply
employé
implicate
imply
manipulate
Derived words: disemploy
employable
employ a steam engine to crack a nut
employed
employer
employless
employment
malemploy
misemploy
nonemploying
overemploy
preemploy
reemploy
re-employemployee
unemploy
Translations: