Word.ws English Dictionary

hirelings

hirelings is the plural of hireling.

Meaning of hireling

Noun

hireling (plural hirelings)

  1. (derogatory, usually) An employee who is hired, often to perform unpleasant tasks with little independence.
    • Is there not an appointed time to man vpon earth? are not his dayes alſo like the dayes of an hireling?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 7:1, column 2
  2. (derogatory, usually) Someone who does a job purely for money, rather than out of interest in the work itself.
    • […]it may bee truely affirmed, that no kinde of men loue buſineſſe for it ſelfe, but thoſe that are learned; for other perſons loue it for profite; as an hireling that loues the worke for the wages;1605, Francis Bacon, “The First Booke”, in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for...
  3. A horse for hire.
    • In the afternoon they went to a neighbouring livery stables to look for hirellings.1934, Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust, Chapter 3, Section 5
  4. (obsolete) A prostitute.

Questions about hirelings

What is hirelings the plural of?
Hirelings is the plural of hireling.

Words near hirelings in the dictionary

  1. hired out
  2. hiree
  3. hirees
  4. hireless
  5. hireling
  6. hirelings
  7. hireman
  8. hiremen
  9. Hiren
  10. Hirens
  11. hirer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hirelings (page history and authors); hireling (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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