employed

American  

[em-ploid] / ɛmˈplɔɪd /

adjective

1. given employment, or paid work; hired, especially permanently by inclusion on a payroll.

   The comedy revolves around a beauty salon owner and her newly employed male stylist.

2. applied or used; made use of.

   In the study, drilling with flashcards was the least frequently employed strategy for language learning.

3. kept busy or engaged with some work or activity.

   I never feel usefully employed in science except when I'm actually gathering data.

4. (of time, energies, etc.) occupied; devoted to some pursuit.

   Working on my quilt gave me many happily employed hours.

---

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of employ.

Other Word Forms

• de-employed
  adjective
• well-employed
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of employed

First recorded in 1560–70; employ ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. ) for the adjective senses; employ ( def. ) + -ed ¹ ( def. ) for the verb sense

Explanation

Someone who's employed has a job or is busy with something. Some people believe that employed teenagers get themselves in less trouble than those without jobs. If you're working, you're employed. Most employed people work traditional full-time jobs, although an increasing number of them are freelancers or have part-time positions. Another way to use this adjective is to mean "used," as when you say, "The employed methods for keeping the classroom calm seem a little extreme to me." The adjective employed comes from the related verb, employ, "use, apply, occupy, or hire."

Example Sentences

In those better times, tourism accounted for about 8% of Cuba’s roughly $30 billion economy, employed hundreds of thousands and was a key source of foreign currency, said Pavel Vidal Alejandro, a Cuban economist.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026

He is still employed by the trust on full pay while an investigation continues.

From BBC • May 26, 2026

That’s a far cry from the nearly half of teens that were employed in retail in the early 2000’s, but then again, participation among those ages 16-19 remains much lower.

From Barron's • May 25, 2026

Renner added that “any employee who does not abide by our code of conduct, or who is found to be participating in unethical or illegal activity, can no longer be employed by our statewide organization.”

From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026

Arguably, Mauer underestimates the scope of the challenge by focusing narrowly on the prison system, rather than counting all of the people employed in the criminal justice bureaucracy.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Related Words

• engaged
• hired
• occupied