Earn
verbTo receive money or a reward in return for work, or to gain something such as respect through your actions.
How to spell earn
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce earn
What does earn mean?
- verbTo receive money or a reward in return for work, or to gain something such as respect through your actions.
Earn in a sentence
-
She works two jobs to earn enough for the mortgage.
-
New staff must earn the trust of their colleagues over time.
Where does earn come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a native English word, descending from the Old English verb earnian, which meant 'to deserve, to merit, or to labour for a reward'. That verb traces back to a wider Germanic source connected to the idea of doing seasonal work and gathering in the harvest, so the earliest sense was bound up with effort that yields a return. Over the centuries the meaning narrowed toward gaining wages or pay in exchange for work, and then broadened again into the figurative sense of deserving things like respect or trust through your conduct. The spelling kept the 'ea' vowel cluster typical of many old native words, which is what makes it sound identical to the unrelated word 'urn', a vessel borrowed much later from Latin. Remembering that 'earn' shares its 'ea' with 'reward' and 'effort' can help separate it from that look-alike.
How the word is built
- earn (from Old English earnian: to deserve, merit, work for); a single Germanic root with no prefix or suffix
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.