hireling
/ˈhaɪɹˌlɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.82 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An employee who is hired, often to perform unpleasant tasks with little independence.
Derogatory
noun
Someone who does a job purely for money, rather than out of interest in the work itself.
Derogatory
Example Sentences
- "Is there not an appointed time to man vpon earth? are not his dayes alſo like the dayes of an hireling?"
- "When my poor James was in the small-pox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him?"
- "[…]it may bee truely affirmed, that no kinde of men loue buſineſſe for it ſelfe, but thoſe that are learned; for other perſons loue it for profite; as an hireling that loues the worke for the wages;"
- "These vain bickerings / Are spawn'd in courts by base intrigues and baser / Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives."
- "In the afternoon they went to a neighbouring livery stables to look for hirellings."
Etymology
From Middle English hirlyng, from Old English hȳrling (“hireling, employee”), from Proto-West Germanic *hūʀijuling. Cognate with West Frisian hierling, Dutch huurling (“hireling, mercenary”), German Low German Hüürling, German Heuerling. By surface analysis, hire + -ling.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈhaɪɹˌlɪŋ/
- British English: /ˈhaɪ.ə.lɪŋ/