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.
They are considering cutting Medallia’s loans to about $1 billion to $1.4 billion, or five to seven times the company’s $200 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, they said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
But three things have since changed for Intel, according to Lipacis, who upgraded the stock to outperform from in-line following Thursday afternoon’s earnings report.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 24, 2026
The fund-management company reported a 25% rise of distributable earnings in the first quarter but its shares dropped 6%.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
The Meta deal and other recent partnerships have lifted sentiment for Amazon Web Services ahead of Amazon’s earnings report, set for April 29.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 24, 2026
There’s always profit-taking or the federal deficit or something or other to account for a bearish turn, and improved corporate earnings or interest rates or whatever to account for a bullish one.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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.
