▪ I. hired, ppl. a.
(haɪəd)
[f. hire v. + -ed1.]
Engaged or employed for payment; let out on hire: mercenary. Also with adverbs, as hired out.
| c 1230 Hali Meid. 29 Eni driuel iþe hus oðer eni ihured hine. 1382 Wyclif Luke xv. 19 Make me as oon of thi hyrid men [1388 thin hirid men]. 1388 ― John x. 13 The hirid hyne fleeth, for he is an hirid hyne. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 241/2 Hyryd man, or servawnte, conductius. 1583 Hollyband Campo di Fior 271, I have a hiered horse. 1597 Daniel Civ. Wars vi. lix, With mercenarie breath And hyred tongue. 1711 Steele Spect. No. 155 ¶1 Travelling together in the same hired Coach. 1789 Gibbon Autobiog. (1896) 127 An independent stranger in a hired lodging. 1808 Scott Life Dryden iv, To have recourse to hired bravoes to avenge his personal quarrel. 1863 Kinglake Crimea (1876) I. i. 9 He..has a crowd of hired courtiers at his side. |
b. hired man, hired woman, hired girl, hired people: applied to free men or women engaged as servants (the latter word being formerly used to include slaves). U.S.
| 1639 Plymouth Col. Rec. (1855) I. 122 Roberte Eldred, the hyred servant of Nicholas Sympkins for the terme of three yeares. 1714 tr. Joutel's La Salle's Jrnl. 2 Hired People and Workmen of all Sorts, requisite for making of a Settlement. 1715 Laws of Maryland (1765) c. 44 §10 No Person whatsoever, shall trade..with any Servant, whether hired, or indented, or Slave..without Leave or License. 1737 Plymouth (Mass.) Town Rec. 18 May (1892) II. 321 A hired man with me on a fishing voyage. 1751 Franklin Obs. Increase Mankind Wks. 1887 II. 227 Slaves may be kept as long as a man pleases..while hired men are continually leaving their masters (often in the midst of his business). 1792 tr. J. P. Brissot's New Trav. U.S. 400 They [Quakers] have no slaves; they employ negroes as hired servants. 1818 J. Flint Lett. Amer. (1822) 9 Master is not a word in the vocabulary of hired people. Bos, a Dutch one of similar import, is substituted. The former is used by Negroes, and is by free people considered as synonymous with slave-keeper. 1820 Ibid. 264 These I must call Americanisms..Hired Girl for Servant Girl. Hired Man for Servant Man. 1842 J. F. Watson Ann. Philad. (1857) I. 176 Now all hired girls appear abroad in the same style of dress as their ladies. 1877 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 4), Hired man, a man-servant. Hired woman, a servant-girl. Many servants dislike to be called such, and think it more respectable to say ‘help’ or ‘hired woman’. 1893 Nation (N.Y.) 19 Jan. 43/1 Where are the farms on which there is no place for the ‘hired man’ or ‘hired girl’? |
▪ II. hired, hiredman
see hird, hirdman.