recruit

From French recruter (as a verb).

• (General American) enPR: rĭʹkro͞ot, IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈkɹut/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈkɹuːt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːt

recruit (plural recruits)

1. A supply of anything wasted or exhausted; a reinforcement.
2. A person enlisted for service in the army; a newly enlisted soldier.
3. A hired worker

   These new recruits were hired after passing the interviews

4. (biology, ecology) A new adult or breeding-age member of a certain population.

• seaman recruit

recruit (third-person singular simple present recruits, present participle recruiting, simple past and past participle recruited)

1. To enroll or enlist new members or potential employees on behalf of an employer, organization, sports team, the military, etc.

   We need to recruit more admin staff to deal with the massive surge in popularity of our products

2. To supply with new men, as an army; to fill up or make up by enlistment; also, to muster

   the army was recruited for a campaign

   they were looking to recruit two thousand troops for battle

3. (archaic) To replenish, renew, or reinvigorate by fresh supplies; to remedy a lack or deficiency in.
   • 1726, George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne, Phyllis Drinking:

     Her cheeks glow the brighter, recruiting their colour.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     “You have surprized my poor niece so, that she can hardly, I see, support herself.——Go, my dear, retire, and endeavour to recruit your spirits; for I see you have occasion.” At which words Sophia, who never received a more welcome command, hastily withdrew.

   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in The Last Man. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 148:

     […] I, abstemious naturally, and rendered so by the fever that preyed on me, was forced to recruit myself with food.

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 181:

     My husband stayed for some days with the magistrate at Cardwell, recruiting his health and recovering from his fatigues, for the passage between Cape York and Cardwell had proved the most tedious and anxious part of the voyage.

4. (biology, intransitive) To become an adult or breeding-age member of a population.
5. (biochemistry) To prompt a protein, leucocyte. etc. to intervene in a given region of the body.
6. (dated, intransitive) To recuperate; to gain health, flesh, spirits, or the like.

   Lean cattle recruit in fresh pastures.

   Go to the country to recruit.

   • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXVII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 44:

     Here it was certain she rapidly recovered her lost strength, and recruited her wasted form; and here she received the letters of her beloved family, relating many circumstances well known to our readers, but new to the travellers, the tidings having far to go.

• over-recruit
• rerecruit
• underrecruit

• ricture