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Synonyms

employee

American  
[em-ploi-ee, em-ploi-ee] / ɛmˈplɔɪ i, ˌɛm plɔɪˈi /
Rarely employe,

noun

  1. a person working for another person or a business firm for pay.

employee British  
/ ˌɛmplɔɪˈiː, ɛmˈplɔɪiː /

noun

  1. Also called (esp formerly): employé.  a person who is hired to work for another or for a business, firm, etc, in return for payment

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Usage

What does employee mean? An employee is someone who gets paid to work for a person or company.Workers don’t need to work full time to be considered employees—they simply need to be paid to work by an employer (the person or business that pays them). The term employee is sometimes used to distinguish contract workers from full employees (who often earn additional benefits), but in this example, both types of workers are considered employees in the general sense.Example: My company has more than 500 employees.

Other Word Forms

  • preemployee noun
  • proemployee adjective

Etymology

Origin of employee

First recorded in 1825–35; from French employé “employed,” past participle of employer to employ; -ee

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.

As long as the platform delivers more value autonomously managing assets, securing devices and resolving employee or customer questions or needs, companies will purchase more tokens, he said.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

McCawley added that the dismissal of the harassment claims was based on the court’s determination that Lively was an independent contractor rather than an employee, not a finding that the alleged conduct did not occur.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 2, 2026

The new incentives, the company said, were part of its plans to reward employee talent.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 2, 2026

Some 10,000 people are believed to have lost their jobs so far, one employee told the BBC on Tuesday, citing a drop in the number of staff active on Oracle's internal messaging system Slack.

From BBC • Mar. 31, 2026

One scholar has boldly, and against all the evidence, claimed that Newcomen was simply an employee of Savery.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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.