Word.ws English Dictionary

employs

employs is the third-person singular simple present indicative of employ.

Meaning of employ

Verb

employ (third-person singular simple present employs, present participle employing, simple past and past participle employed)

  1. To retain (someone) as an employee.
    • Our company employs hundreds of people.
  2. (rare) To provide (someone) with a new job; to hire.
    • Yesterday our local garage employed a new mechanic.
  3. To use (someone or something) for a job or task.
    • The burglar employed a jemmy to get in.
    Synonyms:
    apply, use, utilize
  4. To make busy; to preoccupy.
    • Let it not enter in your minde of loue: / Be merry, and imploy your chiefeſt thoughts / To courtſhip, and ſuch faire oſtents of loue / As ſhall conueniently become you there;c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    occupy, busy

See all 7 meanings of employ

Phrases with employs

Words that rhyme with employs

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about employs

What is employs the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Employs is the third-person singular simple present indicative of employ.

Words near employs in the dictionary

  1. employment tribunal
  2. employment tribunals
  3. employment-at-will
  4. employmentally challenged
  5. employments
  6. employs
  7. employs a steam engine to crack a nut
  8. employé
  9. employée
  10. employées
  11. employés

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: employs (page history and authors); employ (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “employs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/employs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.