employment

From employ (itself from Middle French employer, from Middle French empleier, from Latin implicō (“enfold, involve, be connected with”), itself from in- + plicō (“fold”)) +‎ -ment.

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈplɔɪmənt/, /ɛmˈplɔɪmənt/

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employment (countable and uncountable, plural employments)

1. The occupation or work for which one is used, and often paid.
   • 1893 February (date written), Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, “Particulars of the Life of Samuel Pepys”, in Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, edited by Henry B. Wheatley, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume I, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC, page xxvii:

     [I]t is certaine no man sees more of the Navye's Transactions than himselfe [the Clerk of the Acts], and possibly may speak as much to the project if required, or else he is a blockhead, and not fitt for that imployment.

2. The act of employing.

   The personnel director handled the whole employment procedure

3. The state of being employed.
   • a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, “Cornwall”, in The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC, page 202:

     […] King Henry [VIII] full fraught all thoſe vvith vvealth and revvards, vvhom he retained in his imployment.

   • 1853 November–December, Herman Melville, “Bartleby”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:

     At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.

4. A purpose, a use.
   • 1873, John Stuart Mill, Autobiography of John Stuart Mill:

     This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to my education.

5. An activity to which one devotes time.
6. (economics) The number or percentage of people at work.

• imployment (obsolete)

• employ
• hire

• disemployment
• unemployment