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recruit

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɹɪˈkɹuːt//
  • United States//ɹɪˈkɹut//

A supply of anything wasted or exhausted; a reinforcement.

noun

  1. 1

    A supply of anything wasted or exhausted; a reinforcement.

  2. 2

    A person enlisted for service in the army; a newly enlisted soldier.

  3. 3

    A hired worker

    These new recruits were hired after passing the interviews

  4. 4

    A new adult or breeding-age member of a certain population.

Etymology

From French recruter (as a verb).

verb

  1. 1

    To enroll or enlist new members or potential employees on behalf of an employer, organization, sports team, the military, etc.

    We need to recruit more admin staff to deal with the massive surge in popularity of our products

  2. 2

    To supply with new men, as an army; to fill up or make up by enlistment; also, to muster

    the army was recruited for a campaign

    they were looking to recruit two thousand troops for battle

  3. 3

    archaicTo replenish, renew, or reinvigorate by fresh supplies; to remedy a lack or deficiency in.

    Her cheeks glow the brighter, recruiting their colour.

    “You have surprized my poor niece so, that she can hardly, I see, support herself.——Go, my dear, retire, and endeavour to recruit your spirits; for I see you have occasion.” At which words Sophia, who never received a more welcome command, hastily withdrew.

    […] I, abstemious naturally, and rendered so by the fever that preyed on me, was forced to recruit myself with food.

    My husband stayed for some days with the magistrate at Cardwell, recruiting his health and recovering from his fatigues, for the passage between Cape York and Cardwell had proved the most tedious and anxious part of the voyage.

  4. 4

    To become an adult or breeding-age member of a population.

  5. 5

    To prompt a protein, leucocyte. etc. to intervene in a given region of the body.

  6. 6

    datedTo recuperate; to gain health, flesh, spirits, or the like.

    Lean cattle recruit in fresh pastures.

    Go to the country to recruit.

    Here it was certain she rapidly recovered her lost strength, and recruited her wasted form; and here she received the letters of her beloved family, relating many circumstances well known to our readers, but new to the travellers, the tidings having far to go.

Forms

plural
recruits
past tense
recruited
past participle
recruited
present participle
recruiting
third person singular
recruits
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).