hire
Americanverb (used with object)
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hires,
present (3rd person singular)
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hired,
past participle, past
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hiring
present participle
noun
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hires
plural
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the act of hiring.
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the state or condition of being hired.
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the price or compensation paid or contracted to be paid for the temporary use of something or for personal services or labor; pay.
The laborer is worthy of his hire.
- Synonyms:
- remuneration, salary, wages, stipend, rental
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Informal. a person hired or to be hired.
Most of our new hires are college-educated.
adjective
verb phrase
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hire out to offer or exchange one's services for payment.
He hired himself out as a handyman.
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hire on to obtain employment; take a job.
They hired on as wranglers with the rodeo.
idioms
verb
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to acquire the temporary use of (a thing) or the services of (a person) in exchange for payment
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to employ (a person) for wages
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(often foll by out) to provide (something) or the services of (oneself or others) for an agreed payment, usually for an agreed period
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to pay independent contractors for (work to be done)
noun
-
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the act of hiring or the state of being hired
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( as modifier )
a hire car
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the price paid or payable for a person's services or the temporary use of something
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( as modifier )
the hire charge
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available for service or temporary use in exchange for payment
Synonym Usage
Hire, charter, rent refer to paying money for the use of something. Hire is a general word, most commonly applied to paying money for labor or services, but is also used in reference to paying for the temporary use of automobiles (usually with a chauffeur), halls, etc.; in New England, it is used in speaking of borrowing money on which interest is to be paid (to distinguish from borrowing from a friend, who would not accept any interest): to hire a gardener, a delivery truck, a hall for a convention. Charter formerly meant to pay for the use of a vessel, but is now applied with increasing frequency to leasing any conveyance for the use of a group: to charter a boat, a bus, a plane. Rent is used in the latter sense, also, but is usually applied to paying a set sum once or at regular intervals for the use of a dwelling, room, personal effects, an automobile (which one drives oneself ), etc.: to rent a business building.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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hireenoun
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hirernoun
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rehireverb
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outhireverb (used with object)
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hirableadjective
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prehiringadjective
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unhiredadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hiresimple
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hiressimple
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have hiredperfect
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has hiredperfect
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am hiringprogressive
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are hiringprogressive
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is hiringprogressive
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have been hiringperfect progressive
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has been hiringperfect progressive
Past
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hiredsimple
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had hiredperfect
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was hiringprogressive
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were hiringprogressive
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had been hiringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hire
First recorded before 1000; (verb) Middle English hiren, Old English hȳrian (cognate with Dutch huren, Low German hüren, Old Frisian hēra ); (noun) Middle English; Old English hȳr; cognate with Dutch huur, Low German hüre (whence Dutch hyre, Swedish hyra, German Heuer ), Frisian hēre
Explanation
When you hire someone, you invite them to work for you or the company you represent. If you manage your local ice cream shop, it might be part of your job to hire extra ice cream scoopers for the busy summer season. Your boss at the animal shelter might hire you immediately if she's desperate for help — or if you impress her as a true animal lover. Once she does, she can call you "a new hire," or a recently hired employee. It's less common in the U.S. than in Britain, but you can also say you hire a car when you rent or lease one. Hire comes from the Old English hyr, which means both "wages" and "interest."
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:
He can’t recruit defensive players and he can’t hire coaches who can do the job.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
The Las Vegas Raiders had to wait until after the Super Bowl to hire coach Klint Kubiak.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
While others raced to hire coaches the moment last season ended, the Raiders’ patience came with a reward.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
If they found what appeared to be a cheap bet on the price movements of any security, they could then hire an expert to help them sort out the details.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Verity can’t finish her book series for mysterious reasons, so Jeremy hires Lowen to do so for her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Unlike previous high-profile hires of canceled celebrities, though, Majors wasn’t just guilty of saying terrible things.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
“We are proud of our key leadership hires and continuous infrastructure upgrades and we have quickly scaled and remain focused on growing responsibly at the frontier of finance, tech, and culture.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
He hires Tyler Sedgwick, an American investigator, to find her.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
A former enslaved man hires enslaved boys to work in his shop.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
He underwent three months of training with the company, but ultimately wasn’t hired, Moroccan state media said, citing the company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
During the offseason, McVay hired Bubba Ventrone, who had coordinated special teams for the Indianapolis Colts and Cleveland Browns.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
They also want to know how he got hired by FlyDubai, those people said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Wine drinkers in the U.S. didn’t give much thought to Merlot when Dan Duckhorn hired Rinaldi to be the founding winemaker at Duckhorn Vineyards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
Peter Avakoff and I raced ten hours a day for a week, and on the twenty-fifth of February I boarded the bush plane Mr. Weiss had hired to take me and the team to Anchorage.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
The cost of hiring an oil supertanker to load crude inside the Persian Gulf and sail it out of the Strait of Hormuz recently topped $1 million a day, according to maritime-intelligence firm Windward.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
"The recent hiring trend has settled into that not-too-hot, not-too-cold Goldilocks porridge zone of roughly 40,000 to 60,000 jobs a month," wrote Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
This February, he joined FlyDubai, a budget carrier owned by the city’s flagship Emirates Airline aggressively hiring pilots to feed its growth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Officials have considered mass sterilization or hiring sharpshooters, but those options are wildly expensive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
The intercalation of the drug test between application and hiring tilts the playing field even further, establishing that you, and not the employer, are the one who has something to prove.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
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.
