recruit

Pluralrecruits

Formsrecruits, recruiting, recruited

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person newly enlisted for service in the army; a soldier who has just joined.

   Each new recruit completed six weeks of basic training before deployment.

   The sergeant addressed the recruits assembled on the parade ground.

   Similarenlistee, rookie, trainee

   Oppositeveteran

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To enroll or enlist new members, employees, or players on behalf of a company, organization, team, or the military.

   The startup struggled to recruit engineers with the right skills.

   Universities recruit talented athletes from high schools across the country.

   Similarhire, enlist, enroll, sign, engage

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person hired to work for an employer.

   The latest recruit handled the busy front desk with surprising calm.

   Management paired each recruit with an experienced mentor for the first month.

   Similarhire, newcomer, trainee, rookie

   Oppositeveteran

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To supply an army or other body with new men by enlistment; to bring it up to strength, or to muster forces.

   The king sought to recruit his depleted forces before the spring campaign.

   Commanders moved through the villages to recruit fresh companies.

   Similarmuster, raise, reinforce, replenish, levy

   Note

   Here the object can be the force itself rather than the people who join it. An army is recruited for a campaign, which means it is filled up and brought to strength. With troops as the object, as in recruit two thousand troops, it meets the everyday hiring verb. The army-as-object construction is what marks this older military use.

5. 5
   noun

   A fresh supply that makes up for something used up or wasted, or a reinforcement.

   Similarreinforcement, replenishment

   Note

   Behind the noun stands the French verb recruter, and this sense holds onto the idea of making good a loss. A recruit of provisions, or of powder and shot, fills a gap left by use. The same idea runs through the archaic 'replenish' verb, and the soldier of the army sense is its human form: fresh men who make up a thinned force.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In ecology, an individual newly counted among a population's adults or breeding-age members.

   Ecologists tracked how many recruits entered the adult population each season.

   A single recruit can improve a small population's chance of recovery.

   Note

   Ecology counts its recruits at a threshold, not at birth. A hatchling or seedling is not yet a recruit. It becomes one on reaching adulthood or breeding age, when it starts to count toward the population's future. The army image fits: a population, like a regiment, is kept up by new members joining its ranks. For the same step as an action, see the intransitive biology verb.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To mature into an adult or breeding-age member of a population.

   Salmon recruit into the spawning population after several years at sea.

   Only a fraction of the larvae recruit successfully in any given generation.

   Note

   The biologist's verb has no recruiter. Nothing is recruited by anyone; the fish or larva itself recruits, and the verb takes no object. It usually pairs with into and the group joined, as in recruit into the spawning stock. Successfully is a natural companion, since in many populations only a fraction of the young ever make it.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To prompt a protein, white blood cell, or similar agent to act at a particular site in the body.

   Damaged cells recruit immune agents to the site of injury.

   Certain signaling molecules recruit white blood cells to the inflamed region.

   Similarattract, summon, mobilize

   Note

   In cell biology, the subject is the signal or the damaged tissue, and the object is the agent it summons. The usual construction is recruit X to Y, as in recruit leukocytes to the wound. The destination carries the meaning: the word implies drawing something from elsewhere to work at one particular site, much as an army draws men to a front.

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