as in employee
one who works for another for wages or a salary
demanded to speak to the store's owner and not one of his hirelings
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of hireling
To pretend otherwise in the year 2024 is all-but to out oneself as a hireling.
—
Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 12 Feb. 2024
No refuge could save the hireling and slave.
—Vanessa Etienne, PEOPLE.com, 30 June 2021
Neither should some assistant DA hireling be allowed to forgo appropriate punishment under state law.
—Star Tribune, 8 Dec. 2020
Like Sade, Epstein had hirelings to procure his victims.
—Mitchell Abidor, The New York Review of Books, 12 Feb. 2020
Not since Carson Palmer has one of Mike Brown’s hirelings had the emperor in such a headlock.
—Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 2 Jan. 2018
This dangerous idea is being pushed by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a U.S. contracting firm whose private security hirelings famously shot up civilians in Baghdad.
—Trudy Rubin, Philly.com, 18 Aug. 2017
Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 12 Feb. 2024
No refuge could save the hireling and slave.
—Vanessa Etienne, PEOPLE.com, 30 June 2021
Neither should some assistant DA hireling be allowed to forgo appropriate punishment under state law.
—Star Tribune, 8 Dec. 2020
Like Sade, Epstein had hirelings to procure his victims.
—Mitchell Abidor, The New York Review of Books, 12 Feb. 2020
Not since Carson Palmer has one of Mike Brown’s hirelings had the emperor in such a headlock.
—Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 2 Jan. 2018
This dangerous idea is being pushed by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a U.S. contracting firm whose private security hirelings famously shot up civilians in Baghdad.
—Trudy Rubin, Philly.com, 18 Aug. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hireling
Noun
-
Those employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution, described being asked a wide range of questions about government contracts and campaign donations.—
Kacen Bayless,
Kansas City Star,
13 Mar. 2026
-
The new firm, as is being redefined by AI, is a much smaller corpus of full-time employees, because those are the least flexible workers in your talent pool.—
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson,
semafor.com,
13 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
The rupture occurred as the agency was wrapping up major infrastructure upgrades at the facility, injuring one worker and prompting a Yuba River conservation group to report that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of young Chinook salmon were stranded and died in the rocks along the shore.—
Chaewon Chung
March 13,
Sacbee.com,
14 Mar. 2026
-
They got married, had a daughter, and moved out of the housing that Looney was required to provide to his foreign workers into their own house on Route 61, the famous blues highway.—
Boyce Upholt,
New Yorker,
14 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Hireling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hireling. Accessed 17 Mar. 2026.
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