hire

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See also: Hire and híre

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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 (“hire”), 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”).

Noun[edit]

hire (plural hires)

  1. Payment for the temporary use of something.
    The sign offered pedalos on hire.
  2. (obsolete) Reward, payment.
  3. The state of being hired, or having a job; employment.
    When my grandfather retired, he had over twenty mechanics in his hire.
  4. A person who has been hired, especially in a cohort.
    We pair up each of our new hires with one of our original hires.
Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English hiren, heren, huren, 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”).

Verb[edit]

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

  1. (transitive) 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. B. Maxwell, chapter 16, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
      “[…] 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) 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.
    • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 10, in The Celebrity:
      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.
  3. (transitive) To exchange the services of for remuneration.
    They hired themselves out as day laborers.  They hired out their basement for Inauguration week.
  4. (transitive) To accomplish by paying for services.
    After waiting two years for her husband to finish the tiling, she decided to hire it done.
  5. (intransitive) To accept employment.
    They hired out as day laborers.
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from hire (verb)
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
See also[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Abron[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Akan hyire (“white clay”).

Noun[edit]

hire

  1. white clay

References[edit]

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

Basque[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Pronoun[edit]

hire

  1. genitive of hi, your

Japanese[edit]

Romanization[edit]

hire

  1. Rōmaji transcription of ひれ

Middle Dutch[edit]

Contraction[edit]

hire

  1. Contraction of hi dāer.

Middle English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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

Alternative forms[edit]

Determiner[edit]

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, Canterbury Tales, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale.
      Here begynnyt the wyf of bathe hir tale.
Synonyms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
  • English: her
  • Scots: her
See also[edit]
Middle English personal pronouns
nominative accusative dative genitive possessive
singular 1st-person I, ich, ik me min
mi1		 min
2nd-person þou þe þin
þi1		 þin
3rd-person m he him
hine2		 him his his
hisen
f sche, heo hire
heo 		hire hire
hires, hiren
n hit hit
him2		 his, hit —
dual3 1st-person wit unk unker
2nd-person ȝit inc inker
plural 1st-person we us, ous oure oure
oures, ouren
2nd-person4 ye yow youre youre
youres, youren
3rd-person inh. he hem
he2		 hem here here
heres, heren
bor. þei þem, þeim þeir þeir
þeires, þeiren

1Used preconsonantally or before h.
2Early or dialectal.
3Dual pronouns are only sporadically found in Early Middle English; after that, they are replaced by plural forms. There are no third-person dual forms in Middle English.
4Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

Pronoun[edit]

hire (nominative sche)

  2. Third-person singular feminine genitive pronoun: hers.
Synonyms[edit]

References[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old English hire.

Pronoun[edit]

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.
See also[edit]
Middle English personal pronouns
nominative accusative dative genitive possessive
singular 1st-person I, ich, ik me min
mi1		 min
2nd-person þou þe þin
þi1		 þin
3rd-person m he him
hine2		 him his his
hisen
f sche, heo hire
heo 		hire hire
hires, hiren
n hit hit
him2		 his, hit —
dual3 1st-person wit unk unker
2nd-person ȝit inc inker
plural 1st-person we us, ous oure oure
oures, ouren
2nd-person4 ye yow youre youre
youres, youren
3rd-person inh. he hem
he2		 hem here here
heres, heren
bor. þei þem, þeim þeir þeir
þeires, þeiren

1Used preconsonantally or before h.
2Early or dialectal.
3Dual pronouns are only sporadically found in Early Middle English; after that, they are replaced by plural forms. There are no third-person dual forms in Middle English.
4Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

References[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Old English here.

Noun[edit]

hire

  1. Alternative form of here (“army”)

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Adjective[edit]

hire

  1. neuter singular of hiren

Old English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈxi.re/, [ˈhi.re]

Pronoun[edit]

hire

  1. genitive/dative of hēo

Descendants[edit]

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