employee
Americannoun
noun
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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing employee
"Dogs at Work"
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Vocabulary for the Naturalization Interview
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Units 6–7
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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.
They are believed to be the owner and an employee.
From BBC • May 18, 2026
The tax code only allows lawsuits against the government when a federal employee is responsible for the disclosure.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026
For grad school in 2020, Edwards took advantage of an employee benefit that paid for half the cost of his $12,000 program, and covered the rest himself.
From MarketWatch • May 15, 2026
The UC Irvine law professor has repeatedly said she apologized to the employee, who spent four more years working in Porter’s congressional office.
From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2026
“Where’s your employee Polokov right now? At his job or at home?”
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
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.
