earnings
earnings Lexical Profile
earnings Game Scores & Validity
• noun
Money obtained in return for labor, services, or investments.
"She deposited a portion of her weekly earnings into a high-yield savings account."
The net financial profit made by a company during a specific accounting period after deducting costs and taxes.
"The technology firm's quarterly earnings exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts."
Word Nuance & Usage
'Earnings' is a plural-form noun that always takes a plural verb (e.g., "Her earnings have increased"). In corporate finance, it specifically denotes net profit after expenses and taxes, rather than gross revenue.
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English earnung ('merit, reward, pay'), derived from the verb earnian ('to labor for, deserve'), which goes back to a Proto-Germanic root related to harvesting and agricultural labor.