Income

How to spell income

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce income

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does income mean?

1. nounMoney received on a regular basis from work, investments, or business.

Income in a sentence

• A steady income made it easier to budget for the year.

• Rental properties provide her with a second income.

Where does income come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Income is a transparent native English compound built from the everyday words 'in' and 'come', both of which descend from Old English roots ('in', meaning inside or into, and 'cuman', meaning to come). In its earliest medieval use it meant simply an arrival or an entrance, the act of coming in, and only later did it settle into the financial sense of money that comes in to a person or household. The shift from physical 'coming in' to monetary 'coming in' was natural, since payments and revenues were imagined as flowing inward to the recipient. By the seventeenth century the accounting meaning had become the dominant one, mirroring the parallel formation 'outcome' for that which comes out. Because the word is just 'in' plus 'come', the spelling is regular and the only thing to remember is that the silent-looking 'e' of 'come' is retained.

How the word is built

• in- (in)
• come (to arrive); literally that which comes in