hire

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: hīr, hīʹər, IPA^(key): /haɪə/, /ˈhaɪ.ə/
• (General American) enPR: hīr, hīʹər, IPA^(key): /haɪɹ/, /ˈhaɪ.ɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: higher
• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)

From Middle English hire, hyre, here, hure, from Old English hȳr (“employment for wages; pay for service; interest on money lent”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūʀiju (“payment”), from the verb *hūʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hūzijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewHs-. Compare Hittite 𒆪𒊭𒀭 (kuššan-, “fee, pay, wages, price”).

Cognate with West Frisian hier (“hire”), Dutch huur (“lease, rental”), German Low German Hüür (“lease, rental”).

hire (countable and uncountable, plural hires)

1. (countable) A person who has been hired, especially in a cohort.

   We pair up each of our new hires with one of our original hires.

   • 2024 February 21, Nick Brodrick, “Inclusion and development for all”, in RAIL, number 1003, page 62:

     Employment statistics, the other key indicator of Diversity & Inclusion performance, shows that almost 30% of new Southeastern hires are women.

2. (uncountable) The state of being hired, or having a job; employment.

   Synonym: employ

   When my grandfather retired, he had over twenty mechanics in his hire.

3. (uncountable) Payment for the temporary use of something.

   The sign offered pedalos on hire.

4. (uncountable, obsolete) Reward.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     I vvill him reaue of armes, the victors hire, / And of that ſhield, more vvorthy of good knight; / For vvhy ſhould a dead dog be deckt in armour bright?

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], lines 682–683:

     I have five hundred crovvns, / The thrifty hire I ſav'd under your father […]

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 10:7:

     The labourer is worthy of his hire.

   • 1619, Samuell Hieron, “The Worth of the Water of Life. Dauids Longing, and Dauids Loue. The Good Fight. [II. Tim[othy] 4. 7.]”, in The Sermons of Master Samuell Hieron, […], London: […] Iohn Beale [and John Legatt printer to the Uniuersitie of Cambridge for Thomas Man, Ioyce Macham, Cantrell Legge, and Simon Waterson], published 1620, →OCLC, pages 222–223:

     I haue ſeene a pardon giuen to a man vpon the gallovves, but vvho ſo emboldeneth himſelfe thereuypon, perhaps the rope may be his hire: it is not good to put it vpon the Pſalme of Miſerere, and the neck-verſe, for ſometime he prooues no clarke.

From Middle English hiren, hyren, from Old English hȳrian (“to hire”), from the noun (see above). Compare West Frisian hiere (“to rent, lease”), Dutch huren (“to rent, lease”), Low German hüren (“to rent”), Danish hyre (“to hire”).

Eclipsed Middle English souden (“to hire, employ, enlist”), borrowed from Old French souder, soudre, souldre (“to take into employ, pay”); see English sold (“salary, military pay”).

hire (third-person singular simple present hires, present participle hiring, simple past and past participle hired)

1. (transitive, chiefly UK) To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment.

   Synonym: rent

   We hired a car for two weeks because ours had broken down.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     “ […] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”

2. (transitive, chiefly UK) To occupy premises in exchange for rent.

   Synonym: rent

   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Economy”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:

     I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire.

3. (transitive) To employ; to obtain the services of (a person) in exchange for remuneration; to give someone a job.

   The company had problems when it tried to hire more skilled workers.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.

4. (transitive) To exchange the services of for remuneration.

   They hired themselves out as day laborers.  They hired out their basement for Inauguration week.

5. (transitive, chiefly UK) To accomplish by paying for services.

   After waiting two years for her husband to finish the tiling, she decided to hire it done.

6. (intransitive) To accept employment.

   They hired out as day laborers.

7. (transitive) (neologism) (in the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory) To buy something in order for it to perform a function, to do a job

   They hired a milkshake.

• (antonym(s) of “to employ”): fire

• rent

• ReHi, heir, rehi

From Akan hyire (“white clay”).

hire

1. white clay

• Trutenau, Languages of the Akan Area: Papers in Western Kwa Linguistics (1976)

• IPA^(key): (Southern) /iɾe/, [i.ɾe̞]
• IPA^(key): (Northern) /hiɾe/, [ɦi.ɾe̞]

hire

1. genitive of hi, your

hire

1. Rōmaji transcription of ひれ

hire

1. Contraction of hi dāer.

From Old English hire (“her”), from Proto-West Germanic *heʀā, *hiʀā, from Proto-Germanic *hezōz, genitive feminine singular of *hiz (“this”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe (“here; this”).

• hir, hyre, hyr, ire, ir, here, her, ere, er, heyre, heore, hare, hure, hur, hurre, huere

hire (nominative pronoun sche)

2. Third-person singular feminine genitive determiner: her, of her.
3. Used in place of the possessive suffix -es to denote possession by an antecedent noun.
   • 1430, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale.”, in Canterbury Tales:

     Here begynnyt the wyf of bathe hir tale.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• his

• English: her
• Scots: her
• Yola: her

hire (nominative sche)

2. Third-person singular feminine genitive pronoun: hers.

• hires

• “hir, pron.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 10 May 2018.

From Old English hire (“her”), from Proto-West Germanic *heʀē, *hiʀē, from Proto-Germanic *hezōi, dative feminine singular of *hiz (“this”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe (“here; this”).

hire (nominative sche)

2. Third-person singular feminine pronoun indicating a grammatical object: her.
3. (reflexive) herself.
4. Third-person singular neuter pronoun indicating a grammatical object: it.

• English: her
• Yola: her

• “hir(e), pron.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 10 June 2018.

From Old English hȳr, from Proto-West Germanic *hūʀiju. The final vowel is generalised from the Old English oblique cases.

• here, hier, hijre, hir, hoyre, huire, hure, huyre, hyer, hyr, hyre, hyure

• IPA^(key): /ˈhiːr(ə)/
• (dialectal) IPA^(key): /ˈheːr(ə)/, /ˈhuːr(ə)/, /ˈhyːr(ə)/

hire (plural hires)

1. One's salary; wages.

   Synonyms: mede, wage

2. A reward; recompense.

   Synonym: mede

3. One's deserts; what one deserves.
   • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎^[1], published c. 1410, Petre ·ii· 2:15, page 113v, column 1; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:

     […] þat foꝛſaken þe riȝt weie .· ⁊ erriden ſuynge þe weie of balaam of boſoꝛ / which louyde þe hire of wickidneſſe

     […] who've abandoned the right way and strayed, following the way of Balaam of Bosor, who loved the fruits of wrongdoing.

4. A payment; a charge.

• hiren
• hire man
• hirlyng

• English: hire
• Scots: hire

• “hīr(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

hire

1. Alternative form of here (“army”)

hire

1. Alternative form of hiren (“to hire”)

hire

1. neuter singular of hiren

• hyre, hiere, heore, hiore, hure, hir, hiræ, hira, hyræ, hyra, hyr, hieræ, heora

• IPA^(key): /ˈxi.re/, [ˈhi.re]

hire

1. genitive/dative of hēo

• Middle English: hire, hir, hyre, hyr, ire, ir, here, her, ere, er, heyre, heore, hare, hure, hur, hurre, huere
  • English: her
  • Scots: her
  • Yola: her