ppl. a. Fully deserved or due; merited or acquired by good work or behavior.
1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 343. The big hopes And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
1749. Warton, Tri. Isis, 61. To wear the well-earn’d wreath that merit brings.
1814. Wordsw., Excurs., VIII. 593. The ruddy boys Withdrew, on summons to their well-earned meal.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xi. III. 75. Yet William might have had a more tranquil reign if he had postponed for a time the well earned promotion of his chaplain.
1855. Paley, Æschylus (1861), Pref. vi. Its well-earned character for practical utility and careful editorial supervision.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng., II. viii. 305. No pirate who ever swung on a well-earned gallows had committed darker crimes.
