staff

The word “staff” means the people who work for an organisation. In plain terms, the employees of a business, or a rod/pole (literal or musical).

“Staff” is pronounced stahf ([stæf] in IPA).

Here is “staff” used in a sentence: “The hotel staff were incredibly helpful.”

Words with a similar meaning to “staff” include stick and stave.

Depending on how it is used, “staff” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “staff” comes from Old English. From Old English stæf, originally meaning a stick or letter of the alphabet; the "team of employees" sense arrived much later, borrowed from the military use of "staff" for an officer's support team.

“Staff” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A2 level.

“Staff” has 4 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the people who work for an organisation.

Staff is a collective noun, so it works both ways. In British English it usually takes a plural verb — 'the staff are on strike' — because it refers to many people. American English tends to treat it as singular — 'the staff is meeting today.' To count individuals, say 'members of staff.'

Employees are the individual people a company hires, each with a contract. Staff is the collective term for that whole workforce taken together. You might say a firm has 200 employees, or that its staff handled the rush — one word counts individuals, the other names the group as a whole.

When staff means people, it is already plural or stays as 'staff'; you can also say 'staffs' for several separate groups, such as the staffs of two hospitals. Note that 'staves' is the plural of the unrelated meaning of staff — a wooden rod or pole — not of the workforce sense.

Any group of people employed by an organisation: the teaching staff of a school, the medical staff of a hospital, the kitchen staff of a restaurant, or the support staff in an office. Each phrase names the workers who keep that particular organisation running.