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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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
-
Startup Moonshot, behind the Kimi AI model, was founded by former Meta AI and Google Brain employee Yang Zhilin.—
Evelyn Cheng,Anniek Bao,
CNBC,
5 June 2026
-
Roman said many former employees are holding onto the idea anyway.—
Bri Buckley,
CBS News,
5 June 2026
Noun
-
Gang intervention workers have been credited by city officials as one of the factors behind significant reductions in violent crime in recent years, with homicides and shootings both falling to near-historic lows.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
30 May 2026
-
The implosion occurred during a shift change, and the six workers whose bodies were found were in an area of the site where workers would go before their shift, Matt Amos, Longview fire battalion chief, said, per The Guardian.—
Adam England,
PEOPLE,
29 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Hireling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hireling. Accessed 8 Jun. 2026.
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