Employee

Etymology: Latin implicare → Old French emploiier → French employé → English employee

The word employee entered English in the early nineteenth century, modeled on the French employé, the past participle of employer, meaning to make use of.¹ Merriam-Webster dates its first known use in English to 1822.² The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest evidence to 1814, in the London Morning Post.³

The French verb employer descended from Old French emploiier, documented in the twelfth century, which meant to apply, to entangle, or to devote. That word came from the Latin implicare, meaning to enfold, to involve, or to be connected with.

Latin implicare was built from two components. In- meant into or within. Plicare meant to fold. The literal sense was to fold something into something else. The English word imply comes from the same root and retains more of its original meaning.¹

The sense of hiring or engaging a person for service appeared in English around the 1580s, evolving from the broader Late Latin usage of involving someone in a particular purpose. The suffix -ee marks the person receiving the action, borrowed from Anglo-French legal language.

Before the spelling stabilized, English writers used the French employé with the accent intact. The anglicized spelling without the accent became standard in American usage by the mid-nineteenth century.²

Japanese uses several words where English uses one. Jūgyōin (従業員) means a person following an occupation. Shiyōnin (使用人) means a person being used. German splits the concept differently. Arbeitnehmer, the standard word for employee, translates literally as work-taker. The employer is Arbeitgeber, the work-giver.

Timeline

• 12th century, Old French emploiier appeared, meaning to apply, entangle, or devote.
• 1580s, English adopted the sense of hiring a person for service.
• 1820s, The anglicized form employee entered common English usage, modeled on the French employé.

Endnotes

1. Douglas Harper, "employee," Online Etymology Dictionary.
2. "Employee," Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
3. "employee, n.1," Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, revised July 2023).