Word.ws English Dictionary

earnable

earnable adjective: capable of being earned.

Adjective

earnable (not comparable)

  1. Capable of being earned.

Noun

earnable (plural earnables)

  1. Something that can be earned, especially a reward for good behavior.
    • In the past, I have had the most success with "earnables," which involve structured free time and normally scheduled activities (e.g., working on a special project. A teacher should avoid buying the child out with edibles and material rewards (which soon lose their effectiveness or become too...1988, Vincent B. Van Hasselt, Phillip S. Strain, Michel Hersen, Handbook of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, page 304
    • What Ferdinand would hoard, she circulates. He fastens on the absolutes of ascriptive identity; the duchess, on the earnables of achieved character.1996, Frank Whigham, Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama, page 201

Forms of earnable

pluralearnables

Origin of earnable

From earn + -able.

Words formed from earnable

Questions about earnable

What does earnable mean?
Earnable means capable of being earned.
What part of speech is earnable?
Earnable can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near earnable in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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