employ

Universal Words verb, noun verb 1 ~ sb (as sth) to give sb a job to do for payment: [VN] How many people does the company employ? * For the past three years he has been employed as a firefighter. * [VNtoinf] A number of people have been employed to deal with the backlog of work. seealsoSELF-EMPLOYED, UNEMPLOYED 2 [VN] (formal) to use sth such as a skill, method etc. for a particular purpose: He criticized the repressive methods employed by the country's government. * The police had to employ force to enter the building. IDIOMS be employed in doing sth (written) if a person or their time is employed in doing sth, the person spends time doing that thing: She was employed in making a list of all the jobs to be done. noun [U] IDIOMS in sb's employ