earn

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   earn on some commercial or business transaction

   earn as salary or wages

2. 2
   verb

   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.

3. 3
   verb

   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.

4. 4
   verb

   To receive payment for work.

   Now that you are earning, you can start paying me rent.

5. 5
   verb

   To cause (someone) to receive payment or reward.

   My CD earns me six percent!

6. 6
   verb

   To achieve by being worthy of.

   to earn a spot in the top 20

7. 7
   verb

   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.

8. 8
   verb

   To grieve.

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

Etymology

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”).