hireling

plural hirelings

1. derogatoryusuallyAn employee who is hired, often to perform unpleasant tasks with little independence.

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

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Miss Crawley at Nurse”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 167

   1 more example

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

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 7:1, column 2

2. derogatoryusuallySomeone who does a job purely for money, rather than out of interest in the work itself.

   These vain bickerings / Are spawn'd in courts by base intrigues and baser / Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives.

   1821, Lord Byron, “Sardanapalus”, in Sardanapalus, a Tragedy; The Two Foscari, a Tragedy; Cain, a Mystery, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 56

   1 more example

   […]it may bee truely affirmed, that no kinde of men loue buſineſſe for it ſelfe, but thoſe that are learned; for other perſons loue it for profite; as an hireling that loues the worke for the wages;

   1605, Francis Bacon, “The First Booke”, in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for Henrie Tomes, […], →OCLC, folio 10, recto

3. A horse for hire.

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

   1934, Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust, Chapter 3, Section 5

4. obsoleteA prostitute.