recruit
Americannoun
-
recruits
plural
-
a newly enlisted or drafted member of the armed forces.
-
a new member of a group, organization, or the like.
-
a fresh supply of something.
verb (used with object)
-
recruits,
present (3rd person singular)
-
recruited,
past participle, past
-
recruiting
present participle
-
to enlist (a person) for service in one of the armed forces.
-
to raise (a force) by enlistment.
-
to strengthen or supply (an armed force) with new members.
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to furnish or replenish with a fresh supply; renew.
-
to renew or restore (the health, strength, etc.).
-
to attempt to acquire the services of (a person) for an employer.
She recruits executives for all the top companies.
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to attempt to enroll or enlist (a member, affiliate, student, or the like).
a campaign to recruit new club members.
-
to seek to enroll (an athlete) at a school or college, often with an offer of an athletic scholarship.
verb (used without object)
-
recruits,
present (3rd person singular)
-
recruited,
past participle, past
-
recruiting
present participle
-
to enlist persons for service in one of the armed forces.
-
to engage in finding and attracting employees, new members, students, athletes, etc.
-
to recover health, strength, etc.
-
to gain new supplies of anything lost or wasted.
verb
-
-
to enlist (men) for military service
-
to raise or strengthen (an army, navy, etc) by enlistment
-
-
(tr) to enrol or obtain (members, support, etc)
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to furnish or be furnished with a fresh supply; renew
-
archaic to recover (health, strength, spirits, etc)
noun
-
a newly joined member of a military service
-
any new member or supporter
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
recruitsimple
-
recruitssimple
-
have recruitedperfect
-
has recruitedperfect
-
am recruitingprogressive
-
are recruitingprogressive
-
is recruitingprogressive
-
have been recruitingperfect progressive
-
has been recruitingperfect progressive
Past
-
recruitedsimple
-
had recruitedperfect
-
was recruitingprogressive
-
were recruitingprogressive
-
had been recruitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of recruit
First recorded in 1635–45; from French, stem of recruter, derivative of recrue “new growth,” noun use of feminine past participle of recroître ( re- re- + croître, from Latin crēscere “to grow”; cf. crescent)
Explanation
To recruit means to get someone to join something. You might recruit people for the navy or you might recruit members for your quilting group. The verb recruit often refers to formally joining an organization or a group, such as the military or a corporation. It can also be used more broadly to refer to getting someone to participate in a cause, formal or otherwise, like when you recruit your friend to help paint your room. As a noun, recruit means "a person who has been recruited." If you just joined the Army, you're a new recruit.
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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:
The division is under pressure to show quick results, but it has struggled to recruit prosecutors and has been slowed by an internal turf war that has caused some promising investigations to languish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
A five-star recruit out of Florida Zephyrhills High, Pickett asked finalists LSU, Oregon, Miami and Georgia if he could wear No. 5.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
"If you can recruit good students, why wouldn't you?"
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Berger’s star recruit was Alexander Ruika, a talented young poet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Desperate to recruit both Elizebeth and William, the Army had approached Fabyan.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
According to his lawyers, Tan "repeatedly instructed recruits and his team not to bring or disclose former employers' confidential information."
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
AFC is the largest military training establishment for under-19s in the UK and it receives all the Army's 16-year-old recruits.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
The fourth is the National Research Council, a staff-run operation that solicits studies, recruits committees and produces reports.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Among those new players is a host of top receiver recruits expected to contribute right away.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
Sometimes new recruits were punished for something they didn’t do well enough, or someone in their platoon didn’t do well enough: cleaning their boots, pitching a tent, performing in drill competitions.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
Gillis is a former offensive lineman from central Pennsylvania who was recruited out of his Catholic high school to play football at West Point—where he immediately realized he didn’t belong and left.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Within a few years, he was recruited to run for a San Gabriel Valley Assembly seat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Researchers recruited 180 participants and divided them into three groups.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
My daughter was "sold a dream" when she was recruited to the college, she adds, but it turned out to be the complete opposite in reality.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
The CIA recruited the Air Force's best pilots to test the U-2.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
"We do know, as I've mentioned before, that this is a significant, I guess, ramping up period for air services in terms of recruiting, training, and qualifying air traffic controllers," he added.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
“If we would have been told during our recruiting process and they had said, ‘Hey, No. 5 is not being issued.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
The Fire Brigades Union say there have been difficulties recruiting on-call firefighters, and a steep fall in overall firefighter numbers.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
“We have 12 football players that have NIL deals with Nike. No school in America has more than eight,” Kiffin boasted last month, turning the SEC’s annual media days into yet another recruiting pitch.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
She was also worried about Kanue, Natnael, and Mandela recruiting new players, knowing that a team that had never played together could never compete with the well-coached and well-prepared teams in their division.
From "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference" by Warren St. John
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.
