employed

[ em-ploid ]

adjective

1. given employment, or paid work; hired, especially permanently by inclusion on a payroll:

   The comedy revolves around a beauty salon owner and her newly employed male stylist.

2. applied or used; made use of:

   In the study, drilling with flashcards was the least frequently employed strategy for language learning.

3. kept busy or engaged with some work or activity:

   I never feel usefully employed in science except when I'm actually gathering data.

4. (of time, energies, etc.) occupied; devoted to some pursuit:

   Working on my quilt gave me many happily employed hours.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of employ.

Other Words From

• de-em·ployed adjective
• well-em·ployed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of employed¹

First recorded in 1560–70; employ ( def ) + -ed ²( def ) for the adjective senses; employ ( def ) + -ed ¹( def ) for the verb sense

Example Sentences

“We are going to build the same type of treatment system that Orange County has now employed for 15 years successfully,” Gonzalez said.

From Los Angeles Times

Past presidents have employed this method liberally, often as a way of circumventing political divides that would slow nominations.

From BBC

SAG-AFTRA said it has filed an election petition to represent intimacy coordinators employed by companies in the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

From Los Angeles Times

Statements of the UK population growing annually by a total equal to the population of a city such Oxford or Nottingham – as popularised by Migration Watch and employed by politicians including Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – don’t give a true impression of the dispersal of those arrivals, nor of how successfully or poorly they are absorbed into existing demand for public services.

From BBC

A similar model was employed when Pakistan staged last year's Asia Cup.

From BBC

Related Words

• engaged
• hired
• occupied