Hire, n.
Etymology: [OE. hire, hure, AS. h; akin to D.huur, G. heuer, Dan. hyre, Sw. hyra.]
1. The price; reward, or compensation paid, or contracted to be paid, for the temporary use of a thing or a place, for personal service, or for labor; wages; rent; pay. The laborer is worthy of his hire. Luke x. 7.
2. (Law.)
A bailment by which the use of a thing, or the services and labor of a person, are contracted for at a certain price or reward. Story.
Syn. -- Wages; salary; stipend; allowance; pay.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Hire, pron. [Obs.]
See Here, pron. Chaucer.
Hire, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Hired; p. pr. & vb. n. Hiring.]
1. To procure (any chattel or estate) from another person, for temporary use, for a compensation or equivalent; to purchase the use or enjoyment of for a limited time; as, to hire a farm for a year; to hire money.
2. To engage or purchase the service, labor, or interest of (any one) for a specific purpose, by payment of wages; as, to hire a servant, an agent, or an advocate.
3. To grant the temporary use of, for compensation; to engage to give the service of, for a price; to let; to lease; -- now usually with out, and often reflexively; as, he has hired out his horse, or his time. They . . . have hired out themselves for bread. 1 Sam. ii. 5.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for hire; he lists it under employ, pay.
Where he writes about it:
In this connection employ is a word of more dignity than hire; a general is employed in his country's service; a mercenary adventurer is hired to fight a tyrant's battles. — from employ
It is unsuitable, according to present usage, to speak of hiring a pastor; the Scripture, indeed, says of the preacher, "The laborer is worthy of his hire;" but this sense is archaic, and hire now implies that the one hired works directly and primarily for the pay, as expressed in the noun "hireling;" a Pastor is properly said to be called, or when the business side of the transaction is referred to, engaged, or possibly employed, at a certain salary. — from employ
Recompense is a still wider and loftier word, with less suggestion of calculation and market value; there are services for which affection and gratitude are the sole and sufficient recompense; earnings, fees, hire, pay, salary, and wages are forms of compensation and may be included in compensation, remuneration, or recompense. — from pay
Hire is distinctly mercenary or menial, but as a noun has gone out of popular use, tho the verb to hire is common. — from pay