employment

noun

Etymology: From employ (itself from Middle French employer, from Middle French empleier, from Latin implicō (“enfold, involve, be connected with”), itself from in- + plicō (“fold”)) + -ment.

1. The occupation or work for which one is used, and often paid.

   “[I]t is certaine no man sees more of the Navye's Transactions than himselfe [the Clerk of the Acts], and possibly may speak as much to the project if required, or else he is a blockhead, and not fitt for that imployment.”

2. The act of employing.

   “The personnel director handled the whole employment procedure”

3. The state of being employed.

   “[…] King Henry [VIII] full fraught all thoſe vvith vvealth and revvards, vvhom he retained in his imployment.”

   “At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.”

4. A purpose, a use.

   “This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to my education.”

5. An activity to which one devotes time.
6. The number or percentage of people at work.