[f. EARN v.1 + -ING1; in OE. earnung, ʓeearnung.]
1. The action of giving labor as an equivalent for wages, of acquiring money by labor. Also attrib.
1872. Daily News, 3 May, 6/1. The men who have earned them [laurels] and know what the earning cost.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 Oct., 1/1. The real earning power of the property.
b. concr. in pl.: The amount of money that a person acquires or becomes entitled to by his labor; also, the income produced by invested capital.
1732. Acc. of Workhouses, 29. To know their earnings, and to give an account to the trustees.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. vi. 65. The whole, however, is commonly considered as the earnings of his labour.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 416. But in that age, as in ours, the earnings of the peasant were very different in different parts of the kingdom.
1888. Daily News, 16 Feb., 2/1. The gross earnings of railways have increased.
† 2. The fact of deserving, merit; concr. that which one deserves. Obs.
c. 1020. Wulfstan, Homily, in Sweet, Ags. Reader, xvi. 16. Mid miclan earnungan we ʓeearnodon þa yrmða þe on us sittað.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 19. Crist us ȝef moni freo ȝeue … nawiht for ure ernunge bute for his muchele mildheortnesse.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 171. Ðanne wule he … demen elch man after his erninge.
† 3. pl. Gain, profit. Obs.
a. 1200. Moral Ode (Egerton MS.), 161, in E. E. P. (1862), 32. Ȝif we serueden god so we doð erninges, more we haueden of heuene þanne eorles oþer kinges. [But other texts read erminges.]
1703. Penn, in Pa. Hist. Soc. Mem., IX. 182. Now is the time to make earnings in the islands.
1675. Brooks, Gold. Key, Wks. 1867, V. 15. If thou wouldst make any earnings of thy reading this treatise, then thou must—Read, and believe what thou readest.
