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Employ vs Used - What's the difference?

employ | used |

As verbs the difference between employ and used

is that employ is to hire (somebody for work or a job) while used is (use).

As a noun employ

is the state of being an employee; employment.

As an adjective used is

that is or has or have been used.

employ

English

Alternative forms

* (l) (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)
  • The state of being an employee; employment.
  • ''The school district has six thousand teachers in its employ .

    Synonyms

    * employment * hire

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • 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), 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.
  • *{{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:
  • Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you / against the general enemy Ottoman.
  • * (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • This is a day in which the thoughtsought to be employed on serious subjects.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Charles T. Ambrose
  • , title= 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.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= 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.}}
  • To make busy.
  • * 1598 , (William Shakespeare), (The Merchant of Venice) , Act 2, Scene viii:
  • 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 * employment

    used

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • (use)
  • * 1948 , , North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States , J. B. Lippincott Company, page 75
  • In 1866 Colonel J. F. Meline noted that the rebozo had almost disappeared in Santa Fe and that hoop skirts, on sale in the stores, were being widely used .
    You used me!
  • (intransitive, as an auxiliary verb, now only in past tense) to perform habitually; to be accustomed [to doing something]
  • He used to live here, but moved away last year.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That is or has or have been used.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
  • That has or have previously been owned by someone else.
  • Familiar through use; usual; accustomed.
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
  • Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you're gonna have to get used to it.

    Synonyms

    * (having been used) * (previously owned by someone else) pre-owned, second-hand

    Antonyms

    * (having been used) unused * (previously owned by someone else) new

    Derived terms

    * usedness * well-used

    See also

    * used to

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * English heteronyms