Employ vs Apply - What's the difference?
employ | apply |
The state of being an employee; employment.
To hire (somebody for work or a job).
* 1668 July 3rd, , “Thomas Rue contra'' Andrew Hou?toun” in ''The Deci?ions of the Lords of Council & Se??ion I (Edinburgh, 1683),
*{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
, passage=Charles had not been employed above six months at Darracott Place, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.}}
To use (somebody for a job, or something for a task).
* 1598 , (William Shakespeare), (Othello) , Act 1, Scene iii:
* (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
, volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= To make busy.
* 1598 , (William Shakespeare), (The Merchant of Venice) , Act 2, Scene viii:
To lay or place; to put or adjust (one thing to another);—with to; as, to apply the hand to the breast; to apply medicaments to a diseased part of the body.
* {{quote-book
, author=
, title=Translation of Virgil's Aeneid
, passage=He said, and to the sword his throat applied .
, year=1697}}
To put to use; to use or employ for a particular purpose, or in a particular case; to appropriate; to devote; as, to apply money to the payment of a debt.
To make use of, declare, or pronounce, as suitable, fitting, or relative; as, to apply the testimony to the case; to apply an epithet to a person.
* (rfdate) Milton,
To fix closely; to engage and employ diligently, or with attention; to attach; to incline.
* 1611 , '', ''Proverbs 23:12,
To betake; to address; to refer; generally used reflexively.
* Alexander Pope
* (rfdate) Johnson
To submit oneself as a candidate (with the adposition "to" designating the recipient of the submission, and the adposition "for" designating the position).
To pertain or be relevant to a specified individual or group.
(obsolete) To busy; to keep at work; to ply.
* Sir Philip Sidney
(obsolete) To visit.
* Chapman
As verbs the difference between employ and apply
is that employ is to hire (somebody for work or a job) while apply is to lay or place; to put or adjust (one thing to another);—with to; as, to apply the hand to the breast; to apply medicaments to a diseased part of the body.As a noun employ
is the state of being an employee; employment.As an adjective apply is
an alternative spelling of lang=en.employ
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- ''The school district has six thousand teachers in its employ .
Synonyms
* employment * hireVerb
(en verb)page 547
- Andrew Hou?toun'' and ''Adam Mu?het'', being Tack?men of the Excize, did Imploy ''Thomas Rue'' to be their Collector, and gave him a Sallary of 30. pound ''Sterling for a year.
- Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you / against the general enemy Ottoman.
- This is a day in which the thoughtsought to be employed on serious subjects.
Charles T. Ambrose
Alzheimer’s Disease, volume=101, issue=3, page=200, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.}}
Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution, passage=The dispatches […] also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.}}
- Let it not enter in your mind of love: / Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts / to courtship and such fair ostents of love / as shall conveniently become you there
Derived terms
* employee * employer * employmentExternal links
* * *apply
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) applier, ((etyl) appliquer), from (etyl) . See applicant, ply.Verb
(en-verb)- Yet God at last To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied .
- Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
- sacred vows applied to grisly Pluto
- I applied myself to him for help.
- I recently applied to the tavern for a job as a bartender.
- Most of the colleges she applied to were ones she thought she had a good chance of getting into.
- Many of them don't know it, but almost a third of the inmates are eligible to apply for parole or work-release programs.
- That rule only applies to foreigners.
- She was skillful in applying his humours.
- His armour was so clear, / And he applied each place so fast, that like a lightning thrown / Out of the shield of Jupiter, in every eye he shone.