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)
-
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.
Vocabulary lists containing 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:
She said she plans to reach out to staffing agencies and use platforms like Indeed to recruit new workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
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
New recruit Gonzalo Garcia comes in £0.5m more expensive to provide competition in the Fulham frontline, with Muniz producing one goal and one assist from 10 starts last season.
From BBC ● 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
With men off to the front, womanpower picked up the slack, and local businesses went to extraordinary lengths to recruit and retain female employees.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
In the video above, WSJ joined Danish recruits as they trained.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
New recruits have yet to offset retirements, and courts across the state remain critically understaffed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
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 remains committed to creating a professional, supportive, and safe environment for all recruits, the Army told us, and "any suggestion otherwise contradicts the values of respect and inclusivity that we stand for".
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
When Marina Raskova’s aviation recruits were first given their oversize men’s uniforms, many of the young women were still in their teens—the men’s boots were so big that their feet moved around inside them.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
Around 15% of Etched’s roughly 400 employees previously worked at Nvidia, and it has recruited aggressively from the market-leader, as well as from other established semiconductor firms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
BBC Sport research has identified 14 players recruited from EFL or Scottish Premiership academies for Premier League development squads so far this summer.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
"They recruited US citizens to engage in sham marriages, arranged sham wedding ceremonies complete with officiants, wedding attire, photographers, and attendees," McDonald said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
Brain imaging also indicated that regions responsible for processing language are not recruited for logical reasoning.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
“Well, I’ll be straightforward, Lizzie. Working as a code clerk at the embassy and all, I’ve wondered if your mum might have been recruited into something. But Jakob, a spy? What a bunch of twaddle.”
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Baidu pushed aggressively into AI by recruiting prominent researchers and with the release of its "Ernie" tool -- one of China's first AI chatbots.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
It shields these organizations from lawsuits when they enforce rules involving athlete compensation, revenue sharing, eligibility, recruiting and transfers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
“That was promised to him in recruiting here, for him to sign here,” Kiffin said.
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
Here is a snippet from a recruiting session for call center operators at a women’s college in Bangalore: Recruiter 1: “Good morning, girls.”
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
