Literary notes about EMPLOY (AI summary)
The term “employ” in literature is remarkably versatile, often carrying a range of connotations from literal hiring to more abstract uses of resources or faculties. In some works, it straightforwardly denotes the act of hiring or retaining someone for employment ([1], [2], [3]), while in others it suggests the application of mental or creative energy to a task, as when an author “employs all the heart and the soul” simply to experience joy ([4]) or uses an idea to support a line of reasoning ([5], [6]). Authors have also used the word to refer to the means of achieving an end—be it in warfare or in constructing a building ([7], [8])—and even to describe the use of language and stylistic techniques in crafting a narrative ([9], [10]). This multifaceted usage underscores the dynamic way in which “employ” not only denotes practical utility but also highlights the creative and conceptual efforts individuals make, whether in a professional, intellectual, or artistic context.
- She had been in his employ about a year, when her admirers were thrown info confusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe - When he was twenty-one he entered the employ of Messieurs Labuze and Company.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - the doctor’s houses, who were both in the employ of the family.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray - "How good is man's life, the mere living!—how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!"
— from Hagar by Mary Johnston - In this present case, therefore, I may employ simple conversion, and say: “Every ens realissimum is a necessary being.”
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - When one considers a phenomenon of such range and intensity, it does not suffice to employ words like infatuation, fashion, mania.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Cerfberr and Christophe - those wedges they employ in common with those formed of the Elks horn, in Splitting their fire wood and in hollowing out their Canoes.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - The tree then advised [ 124 ] them to employ men in building a house for them to live in.
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day - The tone was one that he might employ in addressing a bashful child.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story - When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do but employ it.”
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
