different between hackney vs hireling

English

Etymology

From Middle English hakeney; probably from Hackney (formerly a town, now a borough of London), used for grazing horses before sale, or from Old French haquenee (“ambling mare for ladies”), Latinized in England to hakeneius (though some recent French sources report that the English usage predates the French).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?hækni/

Noun

hackney (plural hackneys)

1. (archaic) An ordinary horse.
2. A carriage for hire or a cab.
3. A horse used to ride or drive.
4. A breed of English horse.
5. (archaic) A hired drudge; a hireling; a prostitute.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

hackney (not comparable)

1. Offered for hire.

   hackney coaches

2. (figuratively) Much used; trite; mean.

   hackney authors

   • a. 1685, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, The Ghost of the old House of Commons to the new one appointed to meet at Oxford.

     his accumulative and hackney tongue

Translations

Verb

hackney (third-person singular simple present hackneys, present participle hackneying, simple past and past participle hackneyed)

1. (transitive) To make uninteresting or trite by frequent use.
2. (transitive) To use as a hackney.
3. (transitive) To carry in a hackney coach.

Translations

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