Word.ws English Dictionary

earn one's stripes

earn one's stripes verb: to acquire recognized credentials by competent performance.

Verb

earn one's stripes (third-person singular simple present earns one's stripes, present participle earning one's stripes, simple past and past participle earned one's stripes or earnt one's stripes)

  1. To acquire recognized credentials by competent performance.
    • Earned my stripes, 300 tracks in my Adidas track jacket2021, “Overcompensate”, in Clancy, performed by Twenty One Pilots

Synonyms of earn one's stripes

Forms of earn one's stripes

third-person singular presentearns one's stripes
present participleearning one's stripes
past participleearned one's stripes
pastearned one's stripes
past participleearnt one's stripes
pastearnt one's stripes

Questions about earn one's stripes

What does earn one's stripes mean?
Earn one's stripes means to acquire recognized credentials by competent performance.
What part of speech is earn one's stripes?
Earn one's stripes is a verb.
What is the past tense of earn one's stripes?
The past tense of earn one's stripes is earned one's stripes.

Words near earn one's stripes in the dictionary

  1. earn a living
  2. earn one's corn
  3. earn one's crust
  4. earn one's keep
  5. earn one's spurs
  6. earn one's stripes
  7. earn one's wings
  8. earn out
  9. earnable
  10. earnables
  11. earned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earn one's stripes (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.

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