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.

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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

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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

Musk was responding to unconfirmed reports that Bastian had criticized him during employee meetings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Shell was made president of Paramount less than three years after losing his job as NBCUniversal chief executive following the disclosure of an “inappropriate relationship” with an NBC employee.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

His analysis shows employee attrition at local companies at 14%-26%, well above the 7%-10% at multinational companies in Malaysia and regional peers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Kounalakis told The Times in May she would prioritize responsible management of state finances and investment in housing and infrastructure and protect public employee pensions through transparent oversight of the state’s investment portfolio.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

“Well,” she said, “you, a little police department employee, are in a unique position. Know what I mean?”

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

As speculation swirled about why employees at OpenAI and Anthropic were speaking so freely about their personal beliefs, Korbak jumped into the public discourse.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

Colin unlocked the building, let out the few employees who remained inside the U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

“To my family, to the players, coaches, and employees of the San Francisco 49ers, to our fans and partners, I am deeply sorry,” York said in a statement released by the team.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

Wrestling’s treatment of its employees is a bit too abstract to be listed on either man’s autopsy report.

From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026

That’s the newsletter that all Finkle employees have to read.

From "The Million Dollar Shot" by Dan Gutman

Related Words

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