EMPLOY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Employ

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/ɛmplˈɔɪ/ /ɪmplˈɔɪ/ Listen

verb

Employ v. t. (past & past part. employed; pres. part. employing)

To inclose; to infold. (Obs.)

To use; to have in service; to cause to be engaged in doing something; often followed by in, about, on, or upon, and sometimes by to; as:

(a)

To make use of, as an instrument, a means, a material, etc., for a specific purpose; to apply; as, to employ the pen in writing, bricks in building, words and phrases in speaking; to employ the mind; to employ one's energies. "This is a day in which the thoughts... ought to be employed on serious subjects."

(b)

To occupy; as, to employ time in study.

(c)

To have or keep at work; to give employment or occupation to; to intrust with some duty or behest; as, to employ a hundred workmen; to employ an envoy. "Jonathan... and Jahaziah... were employed about this matter." "Thy vineyard must employ the sturdy steer To turn the glebe."

To employ one's self, to apply or devote one's time and attention; to busy one's self.

Synonyms: To use; busy; apply; exercise; occupy; engross; engage. See Use.

noun

Employ n. That which engages or occupies a person; fixed or regular service or business; employment. "The whole employ of body and of mind."

In one's employ, in one's service.

See images of 'Employ'

Etymology of 'Employ'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Employ" Quotes from Famous Books

... such prose, Malherbe prepared a highway. He aimed at a reformation of the language, which, rejecting all words either base, provincial, archaic, technical, or over-learned and over-curious, should employ the standard French, pure and dignified, as accepted by the people of Paris. In his hands language became too exclusively an instrument of the intelligence; yet with this instrument great things were achieved by his successors. ...

— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... There's just one thing I should venture to suggest, and that is, that you cease at once to be a typist and employ one yourself instead. It's most essential that you should live up to your position. Oh! I'm very ...

— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett

... turned out of his estate an Abyssinian officer in his employ named Ambur Khan, and conferred the same on Prince ...

— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... as the commentators assume, there would have been a sufficient motive for his later actions. But ambition is foreign to the Shakespeare-Hamlet nature, so the poet does not employ it. Again and again he returns to the explanation that the timid grow dangerous when "frighted ...

— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... men were ready to brave all things while he led them. So, after having despatched his German business, he determined to employ the short remainder of the summer in a reconnaissance en force across the Channel, with a view to subsequent invasion of Britain. He had already made inquiries of all whom he could find connected with the Britanno-Gallic trade ...

— Early Britain--Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

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