employ


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employ (someone) as (something)

To employ someone in a particular role or job. I thought they were going to employ me as a file clerk, but because they needed help with data entry, I wound up doing that instead.
See also: employ

employ (someone) for (something)

To employ someone in a particular role or job. I thought they were just going to employ me for filing, but because they needed help with data entry, I wound up doing that instead.
See also: employ

employ (someone) in (something)

To employ someone to work in a certain area. I applied for the job as file clerk, but they employed me in data entry instead.
See also: employ

employ a steam engine to crack a nut

To use excessive, overcomplicated, or extravagant means or force to accomplish something relatively minor or simple. With this new system of issuing licenses, the government has employed a steam engine to crack a nut: four separate departments now handle each stage of an application, when a single department could easily process applications from start to finish.
See also: crack, employ, engine, nut, steam
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

employ someone as something

to pay someone to work in some capacity. I employed Fred as a personal secretary for about three months. Can you employ me as a stock clerk?
See also: employ

employ someone for something

to hire someone for a particular purpose. I employ him for special chores around the factory. Kelly employed Walter for emergency repairs on the night shift.
See also: employ

employ someone in something

to pay someone to work in a particular type of work. I employ Tom in machine maintenance. Laura is employed in accounting.
See also: employ
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
See also:
References in periodicals archive ?
Plaid Cymru has a rule that no Plaid AM can employ a family member.
PS3.5m pai AMs' fami members f public pur id to ly from rse; PRACTICE OF EMPLOYING RELATIVVES ON THE INCREASE
In 2009 SMEs employed 42 per cent of Dubai's workforce, rising to 52.4 per cent in 2016.
SMEs drive 47% of Dubai's GDP
The four Labour members who did not answer included Hugh Henry, whose sister-inlaw Lindsay McAlpine has been his office manager since 2000, and James Kelly, who employs his wife Alexa as office manager.
MSPs' PS230K FAMILY AFFAIR; IT'S ALL RELATIVE FOR PARLY POLITICIANS Twelve politicians still have relations working for them
Owen Paterson (Con *North Shropshire) employs his wife Rose Paterson as a Parliamentary assistant and secretary.
Midland MPs who employ family [...]
The two Tories are Ted Brocklebank, who employs his sister Pat Anthony, and Jamie McGrigor, who employs his wife Emma.
MSPs make politics a family business
When rotor degassing is employed alone, considerable dross can be generated from the process, as shown in Fig.
Ensuring quality prior to pouring: of the various aspects of the aluminum casting production process, the quality of the molten metal is perhaps the most controllable
Second, a new statistic, the impact magnitude of exclusion, is used to illustrate how some occupations affect the self employed and wage and salary fatality rates differently.
Occupational fatalities: self-employed workers and wage and salary workers: although making up just 7.4 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce in 2001, self-employed workers incurred almost 20 percent of workplace fatalities that year; even in the same industry or occupation, they faced risks different from those of their wage and salary counterparts
While consumers often associate telemarketers with aluminum-siding salespeople or telephone service switching, telemarketing is routinely employed by many businesses that consumers hardly view as intrusive.
Telemarketing curbs not a boon to all: the recent federal "do not call" regulations have been cheered by millions of consumers, but they have hurt the telemarketing industry and challenged many traditional businesses that rely on the phone to bring in revenue
On pass, he will carry out a zone technique not unlike the one employed from the seven-yard cushion look.
Playing the weak side part 2: secondary coverage
The benefit is designed to help mothers who either work for themselves or who are employed by a company but do not qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).
Self-employed mums can claim maternity support
The Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism has employed one person living with albinism and 18 other people living with other disabilities.
Ministry promotes inclusiveness, decent work for all
342,000 Bulgarians are self-employed with a total of 3 million and one hundred and eighty-eight thousand employed, according to the data of the European Statistical Office Eurostat for 2018.
Almost 350,000 Bulgarians Are Self-Employed
Twenty-four Indians who were employed in Ingiriya have been arrested by customs officers.
Twenty-four Indians employed in Sri Lanka arrested
16, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- After the expanded coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were implemented in 2014, self-employed individuals and wage earners without employer-sponsored health coverage offers had coverage gains equal to or greater than those of people not employed, according to a report published in the August issue of Health Affairs.
ACA Coverage Gains Include Workers Without Insurance; Reduction in uninsurance rate among this group larger than that of not-employed adults
TWENTY-NINE per cent of employed persons in the EU, aged 20 to 34, and 36 per cent in Cyprus usually worked at the weekends in 2016, according to Eurostat.
Weekend work for 36 per cent of young employed Cypriots
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