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.

---

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

---

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

"My work is to challenge penalties lawfully, through the routes Parliament has provided, usually on the basis that the person found was not an employee at all," Yousaf told the BBC.

From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026

In other words, instead of working for a tech company or a consulting firm, the corporate FDE is a full-time employee dedicated to turning their company’s AI into functioning systems and making the investment profitable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026

The company’s cost guidance includes an estimate for the recently announced employee voluntary exit offer.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026

She became the highest-ranking female employee in Padres history when she was promoted to COO in 2023.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026

Downstairs they exited the building into a small employee parking lot and headed straight for a sports car that looked like it belonged in a James Bond movie.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

Average hourly wages for permanent employees rose 2% on a year earlier, following a 2.3% rise in September.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026

In addition, it requires department employees to participate in investigations of the groups “as a condition of employment.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026

Earlier this year, Oracle laid off 30,000 employees who were notified of their terminations at 6 a.m. and then promptly locked out of their devices.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2026

The number of private-sector employees fell by 52,500, while public-sector employment was up 49,600.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026

“Every effort will be made by employees of the Bureau to strengthen the morale,” Hoover wrote, “and to carry out to the letter your policies.”

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

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

---