Wiktionary

earn

See also: Earn, and EARN

English

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English ernen, from Old English earnian, from Proto-West Germanic *aʀanōn, from Proto-Germanic *azanōną. This verb is denominal from the noun *azaniz (“harvest”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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earn (third-person singular simple present earns, present participle earning, simple past and past participle earned or (chiefly UK) earnt)

  1. (transitive) To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
    You can have the s'mores: you earned them, clearing the walkway of snow so well.
    With their hard work and dedication, they earned respect and a seat at the table.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
    • 2011 November 12, “International friendly: England 1-0 Spain”, in BBC Sport:
      England will not be catapulted among the favourites for Euro 2012 as a result of this win, but no victory against Spain is earned easily and it is right they take great heart from their efforts as they now prepare to play Sweden at Wembley on Tuesday.
  2. (transitive) To receive payment for work or for a role or position held (regardless of whether effort was applied or whether the remuneration is deserved or commensurate).
    He earns seven million dollars a year as CEO.  My bank account is only earning one percent interest.
    She earns more than forty thousand dollars a year in passive income from her parents' investments — that's what she gets before she even gets out of bed or lifts a finger.
    • 2015, Jason Zweig, The Devil's Financial Dictionary, PublicAffairs, →ISBN, page 1:
      After stuffing themselves and their clients full of dodgy mortgages at bogus prices with shoddy assertions of safety, many of the world's biggest banks toppled when housing prices fell. Meanwhile, financial executives whose irresponsible policies and slipshod oversight contributed to the collapse nevertheless earned—and kept—billions of dollars in bonuses, stock options, and other forms of incentive compensation. Many of them are still basking in baronial splendor, apparently unscathed even by the pangs of guilty conscience.
  3. (intransitive) To receive payment for work.
    Now that you are earning, you can start paying me rent.
  4. (transitive) To cause (someone) to receive payment or reward.
    My CD earns me six percent!
    In that era, all their long, hard, dangerous labor in the mines barely earned them even enough to eat!
    • 1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 99:
      '[T]hough I earned her a lot of money, I have nothing but regrets for what I did.'
  5. (transitive) To achieve by being worthy of.
    to earn a spot in the top 20
Usage notes
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The verb has senses of "get because deserving" and "get whether deserving or not", but because to many ears it connotes the former meaning, writers and speakers sometimes resist using it for the latter meaning, choosing instead synonyms such as get, take in, or rake in.

Conjugation
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Conjugation of earn
infinitive (to) earn
present tense past tense
1st-person singular earn earned, earnt
2nd-person singular earn, earnest† earned, earnt, earnedst†
3rd-person singular earns, earneth† earned, earnt
plural earn
subjunctive earn earned, earnt
imperative earn —
participles earning earned, earnt

†Archaic or obsolete.

Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Probably either:[1]

Verb

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earn (third-person singular simple present earns, present participle earning, simple past and past participle earned) (British, dialectal)

  1. (transitive, archaic) To curdle (milk), especially in the cheesemaking process.
    Synonyms: run, (Northern England, Scotland) yearn
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) Of milk: to curdle, espcially in the cheesemaking process.

Etymology 3

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A variant of yearn.[3]

Verb

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earn (third-person singular simple present earns, present participle earning, simple past and past participle earned)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To strongly long or yearn (for something or to do something).[4]
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To grieve.[5]

Etymology 4

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Noun

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earn (plural earns)

  1. Alternative form of erne[6]

References

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  1. ^ “earn, v.3”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
  2. ^ “rennen, v.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “† earn, v.2”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
  4. ^ “earn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
  5. ^ “earn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
  6. ^ “earn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Noun

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earn

  1. (Early Middle English) Alternative form of ern (“eagle”)

Old English

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Etymology

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From Proto-West Germanic *arō.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /æ͜ɑrn/, [æ͜ɑrˠn]

Noun

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earn m

  1. eagle
    • 10th century, Exeter Book Riddle 24‎[1]:
      …Hwīlum iċ onhyrġe þone haswan earn, gūðfugles hlēoþor; hwīlum glidan reorde mūþe ġemǣne, hwīlum mǣwes song, þǣr iċ glado sitte.
      …Sometimes I imitate the grey eagle, a speech of war-bird; sometimes a kite's voice with common mouth, sometimes a gull's song when I sit gladful.

Declension

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Declension of earn (strong a-stem)
Case Singular Plural
nominative earn earnas
accusative earn earnas
genitive earnes earna
dative earne earnum

Descendants

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West Frisian

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Etymology

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From Old Frisian *ern, from Proto-Germanic *arô, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃érō.

Noun

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earn c (plural earnen, diminutive earntsje)

  1. eagle
  2. (figuratively) miser

Further reading

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  • “earn”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
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