earn

1. (transitive) To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.Examples: "You can have the s'mores: you earned them, clearing the walkway of snow so well."; "With their hard work and dedication, they earned respect and a seat at the table."; "Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed."Synonyms: deserve, merit, garner, wintransitive

2. (transitive) To receive payment for work or for a role or position held (regardless of whether effort was applied or whether the remuneration is deserved or commensurate).Examples: "He earns seven million dollars a year as CEO.  My bank account is only earning one percent interest."; "She earns more than forty thousand dollars a year in passive income from her parents' investments — that's what she gets before she even gets out of bed or lifts a finger."; "After stuffing themselves and their clients full of dodgy mortgages at bogus prices with shoddy assertions of safety, many of the world's biggest banks toppled when housing prices fell. Meanwhile, financial executives whose irresponsible policies and slipshod oversight contributed to the collapse nevertheless earned—and kept—billions of dollars in bonuses, stock options, and other forms of incentive compensation. Many of them are still basking in baronial splendor, apparently unscathed even by the pangs of guilty conscience."transitive

3. (intransitive) To receive payment for work.Examples: "Now that you are earning, you can start paying me rent."Synonyms: get, take in, rake in, rake it inintransitive

4. (transitive) To cause (someone) to receive payment or reward.Examples: "My CD earns me six percent!"; "In that era, all their long, hard, dangerous labor in the mines barely earned them even enough to eat!"; "'[T]hough I earned her a lot of money, I have nothing but regrets for what I did.'"Synonyms: yield, make, generate, rendertransitive

5. (transitive) To achieve by being worthy of.Examples: "to earn a spot in the top 20"transitive