earnern.
/ˈəːnə/, U.S. /ˈərnər/ 1. A person who or thing which earns money, a livelihood, etc. Also figurative. Frequently with modifying word.Recorded earliest in bread earner n. at bread n. Compounds 4.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > getting or making money > [noun] > earning money > earning one's living > one who
winner1352
earner1602
1602 A. Copley Another Let. to Dis-iesuited Kinseman 30 Thou being much part of all these, and but a lay mechanical Gana-pan which is a Spanish Epithet..and in English an earne-bread or bread-earner.
1614 C. Cornwallis in J. Gutch Collectanea Curiosa (1781) I. 162 Nor make him so dear an earner of our monies.
1707 J. Dunton Athenian Sport xcvi. 426/1 A Perfection fitter for a mechanick Earner, than a true Owner of himself.
1794 T. Dwight Greenfield Hill vii. 153 Where none are slaves, or lords; but all are men: No nuisant drones purloin the earner's food; But each man's labour swells the common good.
1886 Manch. Examiner 3 Nov. 5/5 The wives of wage earners.
1927 Studies 16 268 At eleven years of age Beethoven was already an earner.
1967 Times 18 Sept. 23/7 (headline) Sugar now top earner for the Philippines.
1985 P. Roazen Helene Deutsch ii. iii. 96 Armin was unreliable about money.., so Felix was the steady earner in the family.
2014 Daily Tel. 12 Mar. (Business section) 2/3 In 1989–90, the 40p rate of tax affected just the top 6pc of income earners; a record 15.8pc now pay it.
2. colloquial. An activity that brings in money for the person engaged in it. Frequently in a nice little earner: a means of making easy or illicit profit.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > [noun] > money acquired easily
easy money1896
money for jam (also for old rope, etc.)1919
pennies from heaven1936
earner1970
society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > profit > [noun]
earningeOE
issuea1325
lucrec1380
lucre of gainc1386
return1419
feracityc1420
revenue1427
vantagec1430
afframing1440
revenue1440
availc1449
proventc1451
provenuec1487
rent1513
fardel1523
chevisance1535
gains1546
commodity1577
proceed1578
increasal1601
benefit1606
endowment1615
gaininga1631
superlucration1683
profit1697
bunce1706
making1837
bunt1851
plunder1851
yield1877
recovery1931
earner1970
1970 G. F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 7 His earner had come on top.
1982 Observer 15 Aug. 22/7 A ‘nice little earner’ is anything that brings in easy money, often but not always criminally.
1985 Trucking Internat. May 45/1 Vernon sells it at a very low margin to keep the price down—he sees it as a service to his customers, rather than an ‘earner’ in its own right.
1987 Sunday Tel. 24 May 35/1 The family letting rooms on the quiet, or the person who has a ‘nice little earner’ on the side.
1995 Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 9 Apr. 145/6 The Rolling Stones rock into Queensland this week, the latest music mega-stars to discover that there is a nice little earner to be made from the motor industry.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1602