Showing results for "employed"

• past tense form of employ.
• past participle of employ.

employed

American  

[em-ploid] / ɛmˈplɔɪd /

adjective

1. given employment, or paid work; hired, especially permanently by inclusion on a payroll.

   The comedy revolves around a beauty salon owner and her newly employed male stylist.

2. applied or used; made use of.

   In the study, drilling with flashcards was the least frequently employed strategy for language learning.

3. kept busy or engaged with some work or activity.

   I never feel usefully employed in science except when I'm actually gathering data.

4. (of time, energies, etc.) occupied; devoted to some pursuit.

   Working on my quilt gave me many happily employed hours.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of employ.

Other Word Forms

• de-employed
  adjective
• well-employed
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of employed

First recorded in 1560–70; employ ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. ) for the adjective senses; employ ( def. ) + -ed ¹ ( def. ) for the verb sense

Explanation

Someone who's employed has a job or is busy with something. Some people believe that employed teenagers get themselves in less trouble than those without jobs. If you're working, you're employed. Most employed people work traditional full-time jobs, although an increasing number of them are freelancers or have part-time positions. Another way to use this adjective is to mean "used," as when you say, "The employed methods for keeping the classroom calm seem a little extreme to me." The adjective employed comes from the related verb, employ, "use, apply, occupy, or hire."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

employed

Is Bill Shaikin employed by The Times or the MLB players’ union?

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

It employs about 30,000 people in its UK operations, with approximately 10,000 people employed at plants overseas.

From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026

As of 2025, VW employed more than 660,000 people worldwide.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

At the same time, the employment rate, the proportion of the working-age population that is employed, eased to 60.8% from 60.9%.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

During the peak of ancient astronomy, Greek astronomical tables regularly employed zero; its symbol was the lowercase omicron, o, which looks very much like our modern-day zero, though it’s probably a coincidence.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

Related Words

• engaged
• hired
• occupied