Meaning & use
hired
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“hired” is a form of “hire”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
verbtransitive
Past tense of hire: gave someone a job and agreed to pay them for their work.
Grammar: Takes an object: they hired a teacher. The base form is hire, and the -ing form is hiring.
Patterns
- hire someone
- hire someone as something
- hire someone to do something
The school hired two new teachers last August.
They hired her as a manager after the second interview.
He was hired to fix the roof before winter.
verbtransitiveBritish
Past tense of hire: paid money to use something for a short time.
Grammar: Takes an object; common in British English, where American English usually says rented.
Patterns
- hire something
- hire something from someone
- hire something out
We hired a car for the weekend and drove to the coast.
She hired a hall for her sister's birthday party.
They hired bikes from a shop near the station.
adjectivebefore a noun
Working for someone because you have been given a job and paid.
Grammar: Comes before a noun: a hired worker. For rented things, British English says 'a hired car'.
Patterns
- a hired worker
- a hired hand
- hired staff
The farm depends on hired workers during the harvest.
He worked as a hired hand on a cattle ranch.
Hired staff receive training in their first week.
Word forms
| base form | hire |
|---|---|
| third person singular | hires |
| present participle | hiring |
| past tense | hired |
| past participle | hired |
Common combinations
- hired hand
- An old hired hand showed us how to repair the fence.
- newly hired
- The newly hired nurses start on Monday.
- hired gun
- The company brought in a hired gun to handle the legal case.
- be hired as
- She was hired as a translator for the summer.
- hired car
- We picked up the hired car at the airport.
Synonyms and how they differ
- employed
- Focuses on having a job rather than on the act of being given one, and is often used in official or statistical writing.
- recruited
- Suggests actively finding and bringing in people, often for a group or organization, rather than simply giving someone a job.
- rented
- The usual American word for paying to use something for a short time; 'hired' in this sense sounds British.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: hired or higher? hired or fire?
hired vs higher
Sounds the same in many accents but means 'more high' or 'at a greater level'. 'A hired car' is rented; 'a higher car' makes no sense.
hired vs fire
The opposite of hire in the job sense: you hire someone to start work and fire them to make them leave.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'hired' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Hire' takes a direct object, so we say 'hired a new chef'. The other options add a preposition or a passive form that the verb does not allow in this meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hired”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.