hire
verb
- employ for wages
noun
- initiate employment
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈhaɪ(.)ə/ / /haɪɹ/ / /ˈhaɪ.ɚ/
name
Etymology: * As a Dutch and German surname, Americanized from Heier, Heyer. * As an English surname, variant of Heare. * As an Irish surname, variant of Hare.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English hire, hyre, here, hure, from Old English hȳr (“employment for wages; pay for service; interest on money lent”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūʀiju (“payment”), from the verb *hūʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hūzijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewHs- or *kweHs-. Compare Hittite 𒆪𒊭𒀭 (kuššan-, “fee, pay, wages, price”). Cognate with West Frisian hier (“hire”), Dutch huur (“lease, rental”), German Low German Hüür (“lease, rental”).
- A person who has been hired, especially in a cohort.
“We pair up each of our new hires with one of our original hires.”
“Employment statistics, the other key indicator of Diversity & Inclusion performance, shows that almost 30% of new Southeastern hires are women.”
- The state of being hired, or having a job; employment.
“When my grandfather retired, he had over twenty mechanics in his hire.”
- Payment for the temporary use of something.
“The sign offered pedalos on hire.”
- Reward.
“I vvill him reaue of armes, the victors hire, / And of that ſhield, more vvorthy of good knight; / For vvhy ſhould a dead dog be deckt in armour bright?”
“I have five hundred crovvns, / The thrifty hire I ſav'd under your father […]”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English hiren, hyren, from Old English hȳrian (“to hire”), from the noun (see above). Compare West Frisian hiere (“to rent, lease”), Dutch huren (“to rent, lease”), Low German hüren (“to rent”), Danish hyre (“to hire”), Swedish hyra (“to hire”). Eclipsed Middle English souden (“to hire, employ, enlist”), borrowed from Old French souder, soudre, souldre (“to take into employ, pay”); see English sold (“salary, military pay”).
- To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment.
“We hired a car for two weeks because ours had broken down.”
““[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.””
- To occupy premises in exchange for rent.
“I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire.”
- To employ; to obtain the services of (a person) in exchange for remuneration; to give someone a job.
“The company had problems when it tried to hire more skilled workers.”
“The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.”
- To exchange the services of for remuneration.
“They hired themselves out as day laborers. They hired out their basement for Inauguration week.”
- To accomplish by paying for services.
“After waiting two years for her husband to finish the tiling, she decided to hire it done.”
- To accept employment.
“They hired out as day laborers.”
- (neologism) (in the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory) To buy something in order for it to perform a function, to do a job
“They hired a milkshake.”