Meanings
-
1
verb
To give someone a job and pay them to work for you.
They hired two new secretaries in the department.
-
2
verb
To pay to use something for a short period of time.
We hired a car for two weeks because ours had broken down.
-
3
noun
The act of paying to use something for a short time.
I signed up for a week's car hire.
-
4
noun
A person who has recently been given a job.
The new hires need special training.
Thesaurus
Common collocations
Etymology
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 (“payment”), from the verb *hūʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hūzijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *kewHs- or *kweHs-. Compare Hittite 𒆪𒊭𒀭 (kuššan-, “fee, pay, wages, price”). Cognate with West Frisian hier (“hire”), Dutch huur (“lease, rental”), German Low German Hüür (“lease, rental”).