different between assistant vs hireling

English

Alternative forms

• assistaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle French assistant, from assister.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??s?st?nt/

Adjective

assistant (not comparable) (attributive)

1. Having a subordinate or auxiliary position.

   an assistant surgeon

2. Helping; lending aid or support; auxiliary.
   • 1790, James Beattie, Elements of Moral Science

     Genius and learning […] are mutually and greatly assistant to each other.

   • The person principally assistant on this occasion, indeed the only one who did any service, or seemed likely to do any, was the landlady […]

Translations

Noun

assistant (plural assistants)

1. (obsolete) Someone who is present; a bystander, a witness.
2. A person who assists or helps someone else.
3. (Britain) Sales assistant.
4. A software tool that provides assistance in some task, a wizard program.

   Synonym: wizard

Translations

Related terms

• assist
• assistance

References

Anagrams

• Satanists, satanists, stanitsas

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.sis.t??/

Verb

assistant

1. present participle of assister

Noun

assistant m (plural assistants, feminine assistante)

1. assistant

Derived terms

• assistant numérique personnel

Further reading

• “assistant” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Verb

assistant

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of assist?

Middle French

Verb

assistant (feminine singular assistante, masculine plural assistans, feminine plural assistantes)

1. present participle of assister
2. (may be preceded by en, invariable) gerund of assister

Noun

assistant m (plural assistans)

1. assistant (person who is present)

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from English assistant.

Noun

assistant m (plural assistants, feminine assistante)

1. (Jersey) assistant

English

Etymology

From Middle English hirlyng, from Old English h?rling (“hireling, employee”), from Proto-West Germanic *h??ijuling. Cognate with West Frisian hierling, Dutch huurling (“hireling, mercenary”), German Low German Hüürling,German Heuerling.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?ha?.?.l??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?ha???l??/

Noun

hireling (plural hirelings)

1. (usually derogatory) An employee who is hired, often to perform unpleasant tasks with little independence.
   • 1611, King James Version, Job 7:1:

     Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

   • 1848: William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 19:

     When my poor James was in the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him?

2. (usually derogatory) Someone who does a job purely for money, rather than out of interest in the work itself.
   • 1605: Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning

     ... it may be truly affirmed that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work for the wages;

   • 1821, Lord Byron, Sardanapalus, Act II, sc. 1:

     These vain bickerings

     Are spawn'd in courts by base intrigues and baser

     Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives.

3. A horse for hire.
   • 1934, Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust, Chapter 3, Section 5:

     In the afternoon they went to a neighbouring livery stables to look for hirellings.

4. (obsolete) A prostitute.

Synonyms

• flunky
• lackey
• mercenary

Translations

See also

• underling