employee

American  

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

Rarely employe,

noun

• employees
  plural

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

---

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

Derived Forms

• preemployee
  noun
• proemployee
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• employees
  plural

Etymology

Origin of employee

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

Explanation

An employee is someone who's hired to do a particular job for pay. If you like to shop in a certain store, you might also enjoy being an employee there. You can see the verb employ, meaning "put to use," in employee. You can employ a pen in writing a letter, just as a grocery store might employ workers to collect the shopping carts from the parking lot. A person who is put to work is an employee. Employee implies that the worker reports to a boss, and it's most commonly used for non-executives who work for a salary.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

employee employees

In recent days Meta, which has more than three billion users around the world, tried to block ex-Meta employee and expert witness, Arturo Bejar, from testifying.

From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026

An employee of a company that provides accommodation for asylum seekers has been charged with misconduct in public office over sharing the properties' addresses.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

Situational Awareness is the hedge fund led by former OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

In 1981, the IRS issued regulations allowing any employee to contribute to such plans out of their wages.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

An employee says Mr. Retro will be here soon.

From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas

Shortly after, parents and employees were no longer able to find copies of some of these books on the public-facing, book-search system, these critics told The Times in early 2024.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

Apparently, this was evidenced by the fact that people in the office once got doughnuts during a meeting, while the remote employees didn’t get anything special.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026

Joe Chapman, a former prison officer, set up a support group for prisoners, their families and employees at Millsike in response to what he described as a "chaotic" start for the jail.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

The number of employees index was 9.3, slightly less than the last reading.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026

The following morning is payday, and the employees of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth line up in front of the red ticket wagon.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Related Words

• agent
• attendant
• clerk
• laborer
• member
• operator
• representative
• staff member
• worker