EMPLOYED • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Employed

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/ɛmplˈɔɪd/ /ɪmplˈɔɪd/ 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.

See images of 'Employed'

Etymology of 'Employed'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Employed" Quotes from Famous Books

... to-day useless invalids, made so by what is called "higher education." Hundreds of boys, who might have become successful farmers and mechanics, are now dissipating in beer shops while waiting in vain for lily-fingered positions as bookkeepers or teachers. In scores of New England towns, one man, employed to fill the heads of a reluctant few with the dead languages, receives more salary than all ...

— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... is much better employed than in sighing at any body's feet; he is gone down into the great hall, to see and reward some poor peasants who have brought home the knapsacks of those unfortunate soldiers who fell in the last battle:—your good Mrs. Ulrica found out that these peasants were in ...

— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... Psalter of St. Louis itself, half of its letters are twisted snakes; there is scarcely a wreathed ornament, employed in Christian dress, or architecture, which cannot be traced back to the serpent's coil; and there is rarely a piece of monkish decorated writing in the world that is not tainted with some ill-meant vileness of grotesque,— nay, the very leaves of the twisted ivy-pattern of the fourteenth ...

— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... that we left such a hidden retirement and we went into Taal. We employed more than a whole day on the road, more than half of which we passed in a lagoon with water up to our waists. We arrived on ...

— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... the time that she had made her little speech about the village, she had been casting quick glances along the road. It was evident that her mind was only half employed with what she was saying. The rose-flush in her cheeks, the dainty dress, the halo of fair hair gave her back youth and beauty; and the priest gazed ...

— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

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