Earned
verbGained money, a reward, or recognition as a fair return for work, service, or merit.
How to spell earned
6 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce earned
What does earned mean?
- verbGained money, a reward, or recognition as a fair return for work, service, or merit.
Earned in a sentence
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She earned a steady salary working night shifts at the hospital.
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After years of reliable service, he earned the full trust of his manager.
Where does earned come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is the past tense of 'earn', which descends from the Old English verb 'earnian', meaning 'to merit, to deserve, or to win by labour'. That word grew from a Proto-Germanic root tied to ideas of harvest and reward, and relatives survive in other Germanic tongues. For centuries the core sense has stayed remarkably stable: to gain something as the just return for work or worth, whether wages, trust, or a reputation. The spelling trap is purely phonetic, since the 'ear' cluster is pronounced like the 'er' in 'her', tempting writers toward 'erned' or 'urned'. Keeping the same 'ear' that sits in the noun 'earn' (and in the unrelated body part 'ear') is what anchors the correct form.
How the word is built
- earn (to merit, deserve)
- -ed (past-tense/participle suffix)
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