Other forms: earned, earning, earns
To earn is to receive money in return for the work you do. Earn a living, earn enough to live on, she earns more than he does.
Earn is about work; win is about competition and gain about acquiring generally. It also means to deserve something through what you have done — earn respect, earn a rest, a well-earned break — and that use is common and warm. Money in a savings account earns interest. Note earnings, the noun for what somebody or a company makes, and earner, as in a nice little earner, which is British and slightly shady.
1verbearnTo receive money for the work you do.
“She earns about the same as she did five years ago.”
2verbdeserveTo deserve something through what you have done.
“He has earned a week off and will not take it.”
3verbproduceTo produce interest or profit.
“The account earns almost nothing now.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
earn is a way of receiving what is due.
Old English earnian comes from a Germanic root connected with harvest — the same family as the word for the harvest season. To earn was to bring in the crop, which is a fair description of a wage before there were wages.
Proto-Indo-European
*seh₁-
Proto-Germanic
*azanōną
Proto-West Germanic
*aʀanōn
Old English
earnian
Middle English
ernen
English, today
earn
Built from
From Middle English ernen, from Old English earnian, from Proto-West Germanic aʀanōn, from Proto-Germanic azanōną. This verb is denominal from the noun azaniz (“harvest”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA