employ
Americanverb (used with object)
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employs,
present (3rd person singular)
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employed,
past participle, past
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employing
present participle
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to hire or engage the services of (a person or persons); provide employment for; have or keep in one's service.
This factory employs thousands of people.
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to make use of (an instrument, means, etc.); use; apply.
We employ objective and scientific methods to analyze all management areas.
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to keep busy or at work; engage the attentions of.
He employs himself by reading after work.
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to occupy or devote (time, energies, etc.).
I employ my spare time in reading. I employ all my energies in writing.
noun
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employs
plural
verb
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to engage or make use of the services of (a person) in return for money; hire
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to provide work or occupation for; keep busy; occupy
collecting stamps employs a lot of his time
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to use as a means
to employ secret measures to get one's ends
noun
Usage
What does employ mean? To employ someone is to pay them to work. An employer employs employees. The state of being employed is employment. A more specific use of employ is as a noun meaning employment or service. This sense of the word is almost always used in phrases like in their employ. Employ also means to use, as in This task will require you to employ a different skill set. Less commonly, employ can mean to keep one busy or occupy one, as in During flights I usually employ myself with some knitting. Example: My company employs more than 500 people.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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employabilitynoun
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overemployverb (used with object)
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preemployverb (used with object)
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reemployverb (used with object)
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employableadjective
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nonemployingadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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employsimple
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employssimple
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have employedperfect
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has employedperfect
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am employingprogressive
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are employingprogressive
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is employingprogressive
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have been employingperfect progressive
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has been employingperfect progressive
Past
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employedsimple
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had employedperfect
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was employingprogressive
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were employingprogressive
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had been employingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of employ
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English employen, from Anglo-French, Middle French emploier, ultimately derived from Latin implicāre “to enfold” ( Late Latin: “to engage”); see implicate
Explanation
To employ means to use something or hire someone to work. You can employ a saw to cut a board or employ a tutor to teach you math. You can even employ your talents in study and activities. The Latin source of employ is the word implicāre, which literally means to enfold or be connected with. This ties in with the verb employ, which is transitive and needs a direct object. (You can't just say "I will employ — you have to employ something.) The word also suggests using something for a specific purpose: you can employ someone for a job or find something in which to employ your own interests.
Vocabulary lists containing employ
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 1–6
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We need to beef up our military and be more cautious about where we employ it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
There are a few tax-saving strategies you can employ whether you have a high income or are planning early retirement, often as part of year-end tax planning, to soften the impact of the widow’s penalty:
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026
Though the days of urgent pleas to reduce power use in the hopes of preventing major outages appear to be largely over in California, local utilities still employ public safety power shutoffs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
However, in the wake of widespread layoffs at various companies that employ entertainment writers, this closing of ranks within the world of entertainment publicity creates an “us vs. them” mentality.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026
They lean with the prevailing winds and employ every fallacy of logic in order to editorialize harmoniously with popular prejudices.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
Pollard, whose business only employs one other person, said she had received "horrendous" abuse online from disappointed guests who thought she was responsible for the fake reservations for properties that did not exist.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
Mound, 31, employs around 35 people in his Boston-based company, founded in 2020, and wants to triple his head count in five years.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026
The Oakland-based non-profit employs about 180,000 people in California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
On some nights so many people show up that Lidl employs a team of bouncers to keep the thirsty clientele in check.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
Today the company employs about 200,000 people worldwide, most of whom are complete strangers to each other.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Whitesides was the first chief executive of Virgin Galactic, which employed hundreds of people in Antelope Valley.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
In July, Russia employed a different AI-enabled drone in combat that demonstrated a less comprehensive form of autonomous targeting.
From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2026
Samantha Lyle has been employed by the city's health and social care partnership as a social care worker for five years.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
As one part of its protection against money-laundering attacks, Polymarket US employed a rule commonly used by financial exchanges: Funds deposited from one payment source were required to be withdrawn to that same source.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
The same skills he had once used to further the ends of the Ku Klux Klan he now employed in the service of working-class people of all races.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
The UCs and other colleges have responded by employing lower-cost undergrads to assist faculty and reducing Ph.D. admissions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
"Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain -- employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities," the statement said.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
Declan Craggs, the mayor of Diss, Norfolk, said Diss Town Council has tried using ultrasonic sound devices and employing a falconer's hawks to scare the pigeons away from Mere Street, but nothing has worked.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
Even the H-2A legal process for hiring seasonal foreign workers “would likely be more expensive than employing undocumented workers.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Bribes perhaps, or a rumor that any inn employing a certain red-haired musician would be losing the business of a large number of wealthy noble customers.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
