earnings
Americannoun
plural noun
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money or other payment earned
-
the profits of an enterprise
Etymology
Origin of earnings
before 1050; Middle English erning, Old English earning, earnung merit, pay. See earn 1, -ing 1, -s 3
Explanation
Earnings are the amount of money you make from doing a job. You'll be a lot more excited about babysitting when you learn your earnings will be more than generous. Most earnings come from work that you've done, although money you earn from an investment can also be called earnings. Any financial profit or gain you make go into the earnings category, since you earn that money, whether through work, luck, or intelligence. The Proto-Germanic root, *aznon, means "do harvest work."
Vocabulary lists containing earnings
One Idea, Part 1
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Century 21 Accounting, 9e, Chapters 11-14
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Earnings grew the way they do during the recovery from a recession, not year six of an expansion.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 29, 2026
Earnings growth looked great in March 2000, but that marked the top of the dot-com bubble.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 26, 2026
Earnings had spiked to record levels in the past two years thanks to option fees - payments made by companies to reserve a part of the seabed to eventually build their wind turbines on.
From BBC • Jun. 25, 2026
Earnings are expected to remain subdued in fiscal 2026 but initiatives such as reducing winter losses, increasing aircraft capacity and expanding the holidays business could support a recovery, the analyst says.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 25, 2026
Under that was an envelope labeled "Pre-War Earnings" with four dollars and forty-two cents inside it.
From "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
