Employment

How to spell employment

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce employment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does employment mean?

1. nounThe state of having paid work, or the act of using or engaging someone or something.

Employment in a sentence

• Steady employment allowed her to save for a deposit on a flat.

• The factory closure put hundreds of jobs and local employment at risk.

Where does employment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb implicare, which literally meant 'to fold in' or 'to entangle', built from in 'in' and plicare 'to fold'. In Old French this developed into employer, meaning to apply or make use of something, and the related sense of putting a person to work followed naturally. English took the verb 'employ' in the 1400s and then formed 'employment' with the French-derived suffix -ment, which turns a verb into a noun naming the state or result of the action. The same plicare root underlies a surprising family of English words, including 'imply', 'complicate', 'deploy', and 'pliable', all carrying a hidden sense of folding or arranging. For spellers the trap is the unstressed middle: the 'ploy' is clear, but writers sometimes hesitate over the single 'm' and the -ment ending rather than -mant.

How the word is built

• em- (in)
• ploy (from Latin plicare: to fold, engage)
• -ment (noun suffix: state or result)