staff
Definitions
General English
- noun all the people who work in a company, school, college, or other organisation
Commerce
- verb to employ workers
Information & Library Science
- verb to provide the staff for a company or organisation
Medical
- noun people who work in an organisation such as a hospital, clinic or doctor’s surgery
Military
- noun a group of officers and other ranks, who assist the commander of a large tactical grouping (such as a brigade, division, corps, etc.), and who form the headquarters
Travel
- verb to provide employees for an organisation
Origin & History of “staff”
Staff is a widespread Germanic word, with relatives in German stab, Dutch and Swedish staf, and Danish stav. these point back to a common Germanic ancestor *stabaz. Its ancestral meaning is ‘stick’, and its use as a collective term for ‘employees’, which dates in English from the 18th century, probably originated as an allusion to the carrying of a staff or ‘stick’ of office by a person in charge of subordinates – who thus became subsumed metaphorically under the notion of his ‘staff’.
