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

"We want a fair investigation," she said, adding that anyone responsible - "whether a bureaucrat, employee, middleman or a big politician" - would face action.

From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026

According to the Bild daily an airport employee saw the drone hovering near the Ukrainian plane and brought it to the ground until police arrived.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

Union members and employee representatives last month held a series of protests against potential plant closures and job cuts, vowing to fight the overhaul plans.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

"No employee at Uefa and Fifa has ever raised a complaint regarding Mr Infantino's behaviour because there never was an incident where he was involved."

From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026

Lord Fredrick gazed up at his new employee, a half head taller than himself.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

More than 400 former Apple employees currently work at OpenAI, according to the initial complaint.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

Many SpaceX investors may want to hold on to their shares, according to Evan Mills, a financial adviser at Scholar Advising who works with current and former SpaceX employees.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026

Average hourly earnings rose by 3.2% in the year to July, compared with the 3.5% economists expected, with average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls at $37.62.

From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026

Average hourly wages for permanent employees rose 3% on a year earlier, slowing from a 3.7% advance in June and softer than the 3.4% rise economists expected.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

For every kid, there are like five adults helping them to prepare for the finale—all retired Bureau employees.

From "Amari and the Night Brothers" by B.B. Alston

Related Words

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