unemployed
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Without a paid job, usually while looking for one.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnemploydSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənɛmpˈlɔɪd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Having no job despite being able and willing to work.
Having no use, not doing work
noun
with the
The unemployed people of a society or the world, taken collectively.
Understand the Word
How this word is built, and what each part adds.
Unemployed describes a person who wants paid work but does not currently have a job.
- un-
- not, or without
- employed
- having a paid job
Prefix function , Not — expresses absence of the quality
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having no job despite being able and willing to work.
Used this way, unemployed is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use unemployed
- “Unemployed workers marched on the capital.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Someone who is jobless.
People who are involuntarily out of work (considered as a group).
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Payment by a United States agency to unemployed people.
The percentage of the work force that is unemployed at any given date.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.