earn

English

Etymology 1

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

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ûrn, IPA^(key): /ɜːn/
• (US) enPR: ûrn, IPA^(key): /ɝn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n
• Homophones: ern, erne, urn

Verb

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.

   • 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.

   He earns seven million dollars a year as CEO.  My bank account is only earning one percent interest.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

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!

   • 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

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (gain through applied effort or work): deserve, merit, garner, win
• ((transitive) receive payment for work):
• ((intransitive) receive payment for work):
• (cause someone to receive payment or reward): yield, make, generate, render

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Probably either:

• from Middle English erne, ernen (“to coagulate, congeal”) (chiefly South Midlands)  , a metathetic variant of rennen (“to run; to coagulate, congeal”), from Old English rinnen (“to run”) (with the variants iernan, irnan) and Old Norse rinna (“to move quickly, run; of liquid: to flow, run; to melt”), both from Proto-Germanic *rinnaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er- (“to move, stir; to rise, spring”); or
• a back-formation from earning (“(Britain regional, archaic) rennet”).

Verb

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

A variant of yearn.

Verb

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).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 3:

     And ever as he rode, his hart did earne / To prove his puissance in battell brave.

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To grieve.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 75, column 2:

     [M]y manly heart doth erne. […] Boy, briſsle thy Courage vp: For Falſtaffe hee is dead, and wee muſt erne therefore.

Etymology 4

Noun

earn (plural earns)

1. Alternative form of erne
   • 1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, , and A Constable and Co., , →OCLC:

     They gleamed on many a dusky tarn ,
     Haunted by the lonely earn

References

Anagrams

• Arne, Near, Nera, eRNA, erna, nare, near, rean

Middle English

Noun

earn

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

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *arô, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃érō (“eagle, large bird”).

Cognate with Old Frisian *ern, Old Saxon *arn, Old Dutch *arn, Old High German arn, Old Norse ǫrn, Gothic 𐌰𐍂𐌰 (ara); and, outside the Germanic languages, with Ancient Greek ὄρνις (órnis, “bird”), Old Armenian որոր (oror, “gull”), Old Irish irar, Lithuanian erẽlis, Old Church Slavonic орьлъ (orĭlŭ).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /æ͜ɑrn/,

Noun

earn m

1. eagle

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: ern
  • English: erne
  • Scots: earn, ern, erne

West Frisian

Etymology

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

Noun

earn c (plural earnen, diminutive earntsje)

1. eagle
2. (figuratively) miser

Further reading

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