earn

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To gain especially for the performance of service, labor, or work: earned money by mowing lawns.
2. v. To acquire or deserve as a result of effort or action: She earned a reputation as a hard worker.
3. v. To yield as return or profit: a savings account that earns interest on deposited funds.
4. idiom. spurs To gain a position through hard work and the accumulation of experience, often in the face of difficulties.
5. v. Obsolete To yearn.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To gain by labor, service, or performance; acquire; merit or deserve as compensation or reward for service, or as one's real or apparent desert; gain a right to or the possession of: as, to earn a dollar a day; to earn a fortune in trade; to earn the reputation of being stingy.
2. In base-ball, to gain or secure by batting or base-running, and not by the errors or bad play of opponents: as, one side scored 5, but had earned only 3 runs.
3. To glean.
4. To curdle, as milk.
5. n. An eagle. This is the original English name for the eagle. It is now chiefly poetical or dialectal, or used, as in zoölogy, in special designations like bald earn.
6. To yearn.
7. Same as yearn.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
2. v. transitive To receive payment for work.
3. v. intransitive To receive payment for work.
4. v. transitive To cause (someone) to receive payment or reward
5. v. transitive To be worthy of.
6. v. UK, dialect, dated To curdle, as milk.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) See ern, n.
2. v. To merit or deserve, as by labor or service; to do that which entitles one to (a reward, whether the reward is received or not).
3. v. To acquire by labor, service, or performance; to deserve and receive as compensation or wages
4. v. obsolete To grieve.
5. v. obsolete To long; to yearn.
6. v. Prov. Eng. To curdle, as milk.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. acquire or deserve by one's efforts or actions
2. v. earn on some commercial or business transaction; earn as salary or wages