enlist
Americanverb (used without object)
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enlists,
present (3rd person singular)
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enlisted,
past participle, past
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enlisting
present participle
verb (used with object)
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enlists,
present (3rd person singular)
-
enlisted,
past participle, past
-
enlisting
present participle
-
to engage for military service.
to enlist men for the army.
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to secure (a person, services, etc.) for some cause, enterprise, etc..
They enlisted us to serve as ushers at the meeting.
verb
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to enter or persuade to enter into an engagement to serve in the armed forces
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(tr) to engage or secure (a person, his services, or his support) for a venture, cause, etc
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to enter into or join an enterprise, cause, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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enlistsimple
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enlistssimple
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have enlistedperfect
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has enlistedperfect
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am enlistingprogressive
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are enlistingprogressive
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is enlistingprogressive
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have been enlistingperfect progressive
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has been enlistingperfect progressive
Past
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enlistedsimple
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had enlistedperfect
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was enlistingprogressive
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were enlistingprogressive
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had been enlistingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enlist
Explanation
To enlist is to voluntarily join the military. You may have seen television commercials or posters encouraging people to enlist. There are various ways people end up in the military. Sometimes there's a draft, which selects people whether they want to go or not. Sometimes people enlist, which means they sign up on their own. Enlisting also refers to recruiting or hiring people for some purpose or organization. If you are moving, you might try to enlist your friends to help — good luck with that.
Vocabulary lists containing enlist
Veterans Day Vocabulary
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Memorial Day: Words of Respect and Remembrance
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Code Talker
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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.
See Examples For:
Sometimes the founders fly in to host, while other times they enlist what they called a small “boots on the ground” team.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
This included BTS members, who were at the height of their fame in 2022 when they started taking career breaks to enlist in the military.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
“The political branches or other international actors may well provide redress. But we decline to distort the statutory text or the Constitution’s allocation of powers to enlist U.S. courts in that project.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2026
Bird enthusiast and Sevidov's best friend, Vyacheslav Kaistro, did enlist.
From Barron's ● May 20, 2026
Men can enlist in the service at eighteen but cannot vote until age twenty-one.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
And you might have seen him as himself this year in the third season of Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback,” as the man she enlists to save a television pilot from hacky AI jokes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026
As the Court Poet, baritone Brian Major enlists the Stranger into the storytelling—their eerie duet as the voice of the evil fairy Carabosse is a striking musical moment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
This is important because the government enlists businesses during war and peacetime for assistance, including with immigration enforcement, cyber-security and critical mineral mining.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
There will also be a rather literal interpretation of comedy series Amandaland that enlists a string of famous Amandas, and a performance from singer-songwriter Calum Scott.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
He enlists the aid of the sacred ota stone, as well as the shrunken head of a doll, a ball of powdered eggshell, and the eggun, a vertebra from the spine of a goat.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
He travelled in 2025 to Ukraine, where he enlisted in the country's armed forces and "gained access to information relating to their military personnel, units and locations", police allege.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
In January 2014, Fox enlisted in the Army.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
The organization has tripled sign-on bonuses to $6,000 and enlisted employment agencies that charge a premium to provide personnel, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
He enlisted in the US Navy during the Vietnam War before embarking on a career in acting.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
Many of our “symptoms” of disease actually represent ways in which some damned clever microbe modifies our bodies or our behavior such that we become enlisted to spread microbes.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The exercise -- enlisting 18,000 South Korean troops and counterparts from US forces in the country -- will have a heightened focus on drone warfare, GPS disruption and the role of cyber attacks, he said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
Proposals such as enlisting Syria, vetting Lebanese troops or relying on Israel alone face steep hurdles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
However, he has subsequently adopted a more market-friendly stance, including enlisting a former Bank of England chief economist as an advisor.
From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026
The Pentagon is interested in enlisting the companies as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deplete stocks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
“I said,” Brinker began in an unusually guarded voice, glancing quickly at Phineas, “I said something about enlisting today. ”
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
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.
