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.

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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

Derived Forms

• preemployee
  noun
• proemployee
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• employees
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of employee

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

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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

In a separate filing, Chairman Zhu Yiming proposed a one billion yuan to two billion yuan buyback over 12 months to fund employee incentive plans or reduce the company’s registered capital.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

A former OpenAI employee accused of planting a recording device at the company's San Francisco offices was ordered held without bail Monday after a federal judge deemed him a flight risk.

From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026

"They come from a disgruntled employee attempting to leverage a settlement in a meritless workplace dispute."

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026

Clarkson alleged that an employee spoke to her in a condescending manner after revealing that a similar item would cost $15,000, comparing the encounter to the infamous shopping scene in “Pretty Woman.”

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026

During the next commercial break, a Hearth & Home employee with a grubby goatee approached our aisle and pointed at me.

From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry

Counting earlier pledges by its founders and employees, Anthropic said about a fifth of its stock will be directed to public benefit, with more possible if it hits valuation targets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026

The internal revolt at the network has become a daily reality for rank-and-file employees who watched the forced departures of foundational figures like Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.

From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026

It abruptly replaced content chief Bela Bajaria last week just hours after a layoff of 1,000 employees that she helped engineer.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

However, the store pushed back against her account, insisting that the bird Clarkson wanted was not for sale and that employees had offered to help her find an alternative.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026

For every kid, there are like five adults helping them to prepare for the finale—all retired Bureau employees.

From "Amari and the Night Brothers" by B.B. Alston

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Related Words

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

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