Seconded

Definition: to send an employee to work somewhere else temporarily

The trick here is that the emphasis is on the second syllable: “se-CON-ded.” It doesn’t sound at all like the ordinal “first, second, …”

Why I Looked It Up

In Lawrence of Arabia, a character says:

I’ve been seconded to the Arab bureau.

Postscript

On someone’s LinkedIn profile, I saw this entry:

Director, Global Content Marketing (Secondment)

I’m reading that as they were seconded to that role temporarily (they had only been in it for four months).

Postscript

From Internal Communication Strategy:

For example, if you are trying to build a team, can you have someone in a proposed role as a secondment or temporary opportunity?