Word.ws English Dictionary

earn

UK/ɜːn//ɝn/

earn verb: to gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work. Also the alternative form of erne.

Verb (1)

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.
    Synonyms:
    deserve, merit, garner, win
  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.
  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!
    Synonyms:
    yield, make, generate, render
  5. (transitive) To achieve by being worthy of.
    • to earn a spot in the top 20

Verb (2)

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

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

Verb (3)

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

  1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To strongly long or yearn (for something or to do something).
    • And ever as he rode, his hart did earne / To prove his puissance in battell brave.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 3
  2. (UK, dialectal, intransitive, obsolete) To grieve.
    • [M]y manly heart doth erne. […] Boy, briſsle thy Courage vp: For Falſtaffe hee is dead, and wee muſt erne therefore.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Proper noun (1) capitalized: EARN

EARN

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of European Academic and Research Network: a former computer network connecting universities and research institutions across Europe.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Earn

Earn

  1. A river in Perth and Kinross council area, Scotland, which flows into the tidal River Tay.

Also used as

earn is also the alternative form of erne.

earn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

earn in Hindi

transitive: receive (money) for working
कमाना kamānā

earn in Tamil

transitive: receive (money) for working
சம்பாதி campāti

earn in Urdu

transitive: receive (money) for working
کمانا kamānā

earn in Telugu

transitive: receive (money) for working
సంపాదించు sampādiñcu
gain through applied effort or work
సంపాదించు sampādiñcu
More languagesFewer languages
earn in Arabic
كَسَبَ kasaba, اِسْتَحَقَّ istaḥaqqa
earn in Indonesian
berpenghasilan
earn in Thai
หาได้, หาเงิน hǎa-ngən
earn in Vietnamese
kiếm
Sindhi
ڪَمائِڻُ kamāiṇu

Examples of earn in a sentence

  • It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St.1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
  • '[T]hough I earned her a lot of money, I have nothing but regrets for what I did.'1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 99:

All 40 example sentences with earn

Synonyms of earn

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of earn

Forms of earn

third-person singular presentearns
present participleearning
past participleearned
pastearned
past participle UKearnt
past UKearnt
first-person singular pastearnt
second-person singular pastearnt
third-person singular pastearnt
plural pastearnt
past subjunctiveearnt
past participleearnt

Past tense of earn: earned or earnt

Origin of earn

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”).

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 rinnan (“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”).

A variant of yearn.

Words formed from earn

Phrases with earn

Words that rhyme with earn

28 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about earn

What does earn mean?
Earn means to gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
What is earn in Hindi?
Earn in Hindi is कमाना (kamānā). See Earn meaning in Hindi.
How do you use earn in a sentence?
It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St.
What part of speech is earn?
Earn can be a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce earn?
Earn is pronounced /ɜːn/ (UK).
What is the past tense of earn?
The past tense of earn is earned.

Words near earn in the dictionary

  1. earmould
  2. earmoulds
  3. earmuff
  4. earmuffed
  5. earmuffs
  6. earn
  7. earn a crust
  8. earn a living
  9. earn one's corn
  10. earn one's crust
  11. earn one's keep

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earn (page history and authors); EARN (page history and authors); Earn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-earn.ogg.

Cite this entry: “earn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/earn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.