hire

Formshires, hiring, hired

Pluralhires

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To take someone on for a job, paying them for the work they do.

   The firm plans to hire several engineers to expand its research team.

   She hired a freelance designer to refresh the company logo.

   Similaremploy, recruit, engage, appoint

   Oppositefire, dismiss, sack

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person who has been taken on for a job, especially as one of a group starting together.

   The latest hire impressed everyone with her quick grasp of the workflow.

   This year's hires went through a two-week orientation program.

   Similarrecruit, employee, appointee

3. 3
   verbUKtransitive

   To pay a fixed sum to use something or someone's services for a limited time.

   They hired a marquee and tables for the village fete.

   She wants to hire a wedding dress rather than buy one.

   Similarrent

   Note

   Paying to use a thing for a limited time is chiefly a British use: you hire a car, a marquee or a dress. American English usually says rent for objects and keeps hire mainly for taking people on. W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918) mentions "the hired fly", a carriage taken for the day, which shows how naturally the past participle works as an adjective.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Money paid for the temporary use of something.

   The daily hire of the equipment came to nearly a hundred dollars.

   Customers pay a small hire fee for each piece of gear.

   Similarrental, rent, charge, fee

   Note

   Here the money pays for the use of a thing, not for anyone's labor. The set phrase is on hire, as on a sign offering pedalos on hire, and it marks goods that can be taken out for a fee and returned. Like the employment sense, it continues the Old English meaning "pay for service". The matching verb is the verb of paying to use.

5. 5
   verbUKtransitive

   To pay rent in order to occupy a building or property.

   The startup hired offices above the old bank for its first year.

   You can hire the community hall for a modest weekly sum.

   Similarrent

   Note

   This premises sense shares the British leaning of the verb of paying to use, and rent is its everyday equivalent. Henry David Thoreau, however, uses it plainly in Walden, published in Boston in 1854. There he sets hiring against owning: the civilized man "hires his [shelter] commonly because he cannot afford to own it." The contrast with owning is the natural frame for the word.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The state of being employed or having a paid job.

   The craftsmen in the duke's hire produced furniture for the entire estate.

   He spent twenty years in the hire of a shipping company.

   Similaremployment

   Note

   Old English hȳr already meant "employment for wages", as well as "pay for service" and "interest on money lent". The modern sense is uncountable and usually sits in a possessive frame, such as in his hire or in the hire of a company, which names whose wages someone draws. Keep it apart from the countable "new hire": a hire is a person, while being in someone's hire is a condition.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To provide one's own services or property to another in return for payment.

   Local fishermen hire out their boats when the catch is poor.

   She hired herself out as a private tutor for several summers.

   Similarrent, lease, let

   Note

   The direction of payment reverses here: the subject receives the money instead of paying it. The sense almost always takes out, as in hire out a basement or hire out boats. With a person it goes reflexive, as in hire oneself out as a day laborer or a tutor. That reflexive pronoun tells you the subject is offering their own labor, not buying someone else's.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To take up employment with an employer.

   She hired on with a road crew for the summer.

   Hundreds hire on each year when the cannery reopens.

   Similarsign

   Note

   The worker is the subject of this sense, not the employer. It is the mirror image of the employer's "take on". The form is intransitive: they hired out as day laborers, with no object and no reflexive pronoun. That missing object is the only thing that separates it from hiring oneself out.

9. 9
   verbUKtransitive

   To get a piece of work carried out by paying others to do it.

   They hired the fence rebuilt after the storm brought it down.

   Rather than risk it themselves, they hire the wiring inspected each year.

   Note

   A chiefly British construction: hire takes an object followed by a past participle that names the finished result. You hire it done, hire the fence rebuilt, hire the wiring inspected. The person paid never appears in the sentence; only the task and its outcome do. It is a compact alternative to have something done when you want to stress that money changed hands.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To buy a product specifically so that it performs a particular function or task for the buyer.

    Commuters often hire a snack not for nutrition but to pass a long drive.

    Buyers hired the new tool to solve a problem their old software couldn't.

    Similarbuy, employ

    Note

    A business-theory metaphor treats the customer as an employer and the product as the worker taken on. Its signature sentence, "They hired a milkshake," sounds odd on purpose. The oddness forces attention onto the job the purchase is meant to do, not the product itself. The usage is new and belongs to discussions of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory, so outside that setting it needs explanation.

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