Meaning of volunteer in English

volunteer

noun [ C ]

/ˌvɒl.ənˈtɪər/ us

/ˌvɑː.lənˈtɪr/

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a person who does something, especially helping other people, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it:

The health clinic is relying on volunteers to run the office and answer the phones.

Since it would be a highly dangerous mission, the Lieutenant asked for volunteers.

It's a volunteer army with no paid professionals.

Compare

conscript verb mainly UK

draftee US

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As a volunteer on the childcare project, I really saw life.
He emphasized that all the people taking part in the research were volunteers.
We're saving money by using volunteers.
She placed her name on the list of volunteers.
Charities such as Oxfam are always trying to recruit volunteers to help in their work.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Organizations - charities

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Freedom to act

volunteer

verb

/ˌvɒl.ənˈtɪər/ us

/ˌvɑː.lənˈtɪr/

C1 [ I or T ]

to offer to do something that you do not have to do, often without having been asked to do it and/or without expecting payment:

[ + to infinitive ] During the emergency many staff volunteered to work through the weekend.

He volunteered for the army (= he joined even though he did not have to).

I volunteered myself for the position of Health and Safety Representative.

humorous My friends volunteered me to do the talking.

[ T ]

to give information without being asked:

If I were you, I wouldn't volunteer any details of what happened.

[ + speech ] "I saw her going out of the main entrance half an hour ago," he volunteered.

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You can accuse me of cowardice, but I still wouldn't volunteer to fight in a war.
I volunteered to do the washing up.
Many women volunteered to work as nurses in the war.
Did anybody volunteer to tidy up?
They all volunteered to help with the digging.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Accepting & agreeing

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Saying & uttering

(Definition of volunteer from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

volunteer | American Dictionary

volunteer

noun [ C ]

/ˌvɑl·ənˈtɪr/

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a person who does something, esp. for other people or for an organization, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it:

The charity relies on volunteers to run the office and answer the phones.

volunteer

verb [ I/T ]

/ˌvɑl·ənˈtɪər/

to do something, esp. for other people or for an organization, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it:

[ + to infinitive ] During the emergency a lot of people volunteered to work through the night.

[ T ] Three physicians volunteered their services.

(Definition of volunteer from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

volunteer | Business English

volunteer

noun [ C ]

/ˌvɒlənˈtɪər/ us

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a person who does a job or some work without being paid or forced to do it:

They employ 1,000 people and 23,000 volunteers.

I will ask for volunteers to help with the search.

volunteer

verb [ I or T ]

/ˌvɒlənˈtɪər/ us

to offer to do something without being paid for it or without being asked to do it:

If they're short of helpers, I could volunteer.

volunteer to do sth I volunteered to do the accounting.

volunteer for sth He volunteered for early retirement.

volunteer sb for/to do sth He volunteered his wife for the job.

More residents need to step forward and volunteer time and energy.

volunteer

adjective

/ˌvɒlənˈtɪər/ us

used to describe someone who works without expecting payment, or the work they do:

volunteer staff/workers

a volunteer doctor/firefighter/lawyer The legal advice centres are staffed by volunteer lawyers.

Her volunteer work took up most of her free time.

Compare

paid

(Definition of volunteer from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of volunteer

volunteer

The mainspring of voluntaryism is that initiative lies with the volunteers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He set up an experiment, in laboratory conditions, where volunteers were asked to co-operate in a" learning experiment".

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this case, a simulated prison was created and twenty-four volunteers were randomly assigned to the roles of" guard" or" prisoner".

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Over the next 70 years, researchers typically obtained informed consent to research from healthy volunteers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Despite recent large increases in the number of organs transplanted from living donors, especially from genetically unrelated volunteers, supply continues to lag far behind demand.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We do have trained counselors, but our volunteers are not therapists.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The befriending service that has been studied had 150 volunteers and 150 users.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Mirroring wider trends in the voluntary sector, most volunteers are females and middle-aged.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Therefore, it is argued that the volunteers did not bias the genotype effects.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In order to fill their quotas, recruitment officers had to accept all the physically able volunteers they could get.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A similar, though weaker, relationship was shown between volunteering and chronic physical-health problems.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Equally, older volunteers wanted to meet similar others and to form social relationships.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Using elderly volunteers to care for the elderly: opportunities for nursing.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Promoting transformative learning enables community volunteering to provide meaningful roles for seniors, and promotes citizenship participation and the social economy in an ageing society.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The first experiments were those which the volunteers knew they would be subjected to.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of volunteer

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with volunteer

volunteer

These are words often used in combination with volunteer.

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active volunteer

Whether the respondent suffered from chronic diseases was not however related to his or her probability of being an active volunteer.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

adult volunteer

There are more than 49,000 cadets, more than 10,000 adult volunteer staff and about 5,000 civilian committee members.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

citizen volunteer

This undoubtedly will result in a citizen volunteer reserve with a substantial preponderance of what are called teeth arms.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

See all collocations with volunteer

What is the pronunciation of volunteer?

Translations of volunteer

in Chinese (Traditional)

自願參加者，（尤指幫助別人的）志願者, 自願做, 無償做…

Meaning of volunteer in English

volunteer | American Dictionary

volunteer | Business English

Examples of volunteer

Collocations with volunteer

volunteer

Translations of volunteer

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