employee

American  

[em-ploi-ee, em-ploi-ee] / ɛmˈplɔɪ i, ˌɛm plɔɪˈi /

Rarely employe,

noun

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

• preemployee noun
• proemployee adjective

Etymology

Origin of employee

First recorded in 1825–35; from French employé “employed,” past participle of employer to employ; -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

Meanwhile, Wall Street continued its trend of cheering news of large layoffs in the technology sector, which investors see as a sign of companies embracing AI to boost employee productivity.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 15, 2026

The Meta dashboard, a side project created by an individual employee first reported on by the Information, has since been taken down at the employee’s discretion, a Meta spokesperson said.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026

The 79-year-old, a well-known fast food fan, emerged from the heart of the White House to take possession of two bags of burgers from a DoorDash employee.

From Barron's • Apr. 13, 2026

This was despite her not wanting to work for the multinational company because of its treatment of her father, she said, who had once also been a senior employee.

From BBC • Apr. 13, 2026

A native of Indiana, Doss is an amiable, soft-spoken, extremely thoughtful man who looks nothing like a National Park Service employee.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Related Words

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