Other forms: deserves, deserved, deserving
To deserve something is to have earned it by what you did — good or bad. She deserves a medal. He deserved everything he got.
It is a state verb and is not used in the continuous. It takes both a noun and an infinitive: deserve a rest, deserve to win. Note that deserve works equally for rewards and punishments, which not every language allows, and that deserved as an adjective — a deserved victory — is high praise. The phrase get what you deserve is nearly always about punishment, and deservedly is an adverb that appears mostly in reviews and obituaries.
1verbdeserveTo have earned something by what you have done.
“After a week like that she deserves a rest.”
2verbproperTo be the proper object of something bad.
“Nobody deserves to be spoken to like that.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
deserve is a state of having earned.
Latin deservire meant to serve well or zealously — de-, thoroughly, plus servire, to serve. To deserve something was to have served for it, and the modern sense of having earned it by any means keeps the accounting and drops the service.
Proto-Indo-European
*ser- (guard)
Latin
dēserviō
Old French
deservir
Middle English
deserven
English, today
deserve
From Middle English deserven, from Old French deservir, from Latin dēserviō, from dē- + serviō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA