# employ

/ɛmˈpɫɔɪ/ (US) · /ɛmplˈɔɪ/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/employ
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. to give someone a job

verb · CEFR A2

to pay someone to work for you or your company.

For teachers: to retain someone as an employee in exchange for payment. Transitive — always takes the person or group as a direct object.

- The local factory employs over two hundred people from the nearby village.
- The multinational corporation employs thousands of software engineers across its European offices to maintain its cloud infrastructure.

Usage: Often used in the passive voice to describe a person's job status.

### 2. to use a method or tool

verb · CEFR B2 · Academic

to use something, such as a skill or a method, for a particular purpose.

For teachers: to make use of a resource, technique, or instrument to achieve a specific goal.

- The builders employed a new technique to finish the roof more quickly.
- The researchers employed a variety of statistical models to ensure the accuracy of their findings before publication.

Usage: Common in academic and professional writing as a more formal alternative to 'use'.

### 3. to keep busy

verb · CEFR C1 · Formal · Literary

to keep yourself busy with an activity.

For teachers: to occupy or preoccupy someone's time or attention. Often used reflexively.

- She employed herself with gardening while waiting for the news.
- He employed his time in the library, meticulously cataloguing the rare manuscripts that had been neglected for decades.

### 4. state of being an employee

noun · CEFR B2 · Formal

the state of being employed by someone.

For teachers: the state of being in someone's service or employment.

- He has been in the company's employ for nearly twenty years.
- The diplomat remained in the government's employ until his retirement, serving in several high-profile international roles.

## Examples

- The local factory plans to employ fifty new workers this month.
- The marketing team decided to employ a new social media strategy to reach younger customers.
- To solve the complex engineering problem, the researchers had to employ advanced mathematical models that had never been tested in a real-world environment.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.