earn

English Online Dictionary. What means earn‎? What does earn mean?

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/
• 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.
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).
3. (intransitive) To receive payment for work.

4. (transitive) To cause (someone) to receive payment or reward.
5. (transitive) To achieve by being worthy of.

Usage notes

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

Synonyms

• (gain through applied effort or work): deserve, merit, garner, win
• ((transitive) receive payment for work): get, take in, rake in
• ((intransitive) receive payment for work): rake it in
• (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)  [and other forms], 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).
2. (intransitive, obsolete) To grieve.

Etymology 4

Noun

earn (plural earns)

1. Alternative form of erne

References

Anagrams

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

Middle English

Noun

earn

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

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *arō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /æ͜ɑrn/, [æ͜ɑrˠn]

Noun

earn m

1. eagle

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: ern, arn, aryn, eerne, eren, erne, eron, ærn, earn (Early Middle English)
  • 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