acquihire
/əkˈhaɪɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To acquire a company, in particular a small startup, to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.
Slang; Transitive verb
noun
An acquisition of a company to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.
Slang
Example Sentences
- "“Tarek was an acquihired founder like you. He turned out to be so awesome, I made him co-head of one of Phluttr's biggest projects! But that's rare. I usually look to guys like you and him to start something new. You're entrepreneurs, after all![…]”"
- "Then, in August, they bought Push Pop press, which was seen as an acquihire of designers Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas, who designed several of key pieces of the iPhone interface."
- "There are a lot of really excellent founders pursuing consumer ideas that just never work -- that's why companies like Yahoo and Google and others can do so many acquihires."
Etymology
Coined by Rex Hammock in 2005 as acqhire, blend of acquire + hire, in reference to acquisition of Dodgeball.com by Google. Hammock subsequently worked to popularize the word. Spelling inconsistent, particularly to difficulty in pronunciation (/ak-hire/), leading to longer variants.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əkˈhaɪɚ/
- British English: /əkˈhaɪə/
Usage
Inflected Forms
acquihires (present, singular)
acquihiring (participle, present)
acquihired (participle, past)
acquihired (past)
acqhire (alternative)
acq-hire (alternative)
acquhire (alternative)
acqu-hire (alternative)
acqui-hire (alternative)
acquihires (plural)