earnt
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈɜːnt/
- (General American, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈɝnt/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nt
Verb
[edit]earnt
- (chiefly British) simple past and past participle of earn
- 2005, Andrew Milner, Literature, Culture and Society:
- An exceptionally popular commercial writer can even become rich from royalties: immediately prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling was reported by The Times to have earnt some £280 million from the sale of an estimated 200 million copies of her books worldwide combined with royalties from the films based on them [...].
- 2010, Aileen Cater-Steel, Women in Engineering, Science and Technology:
- In 2006 women in the mining sector earnt an average weekly wage of $1335.40, compared to women working in the retail trade sector, who earnt an average $726.10 per week.
Usage notes
[edit]- Written, this is an uncommon (<0.5% as common as earned in the British National Corpus) alternative form of the simple past and past participle earned. This form is, however, more commonly spoken than written. Other verbs which can be conjugated in this way are: burn (burnt), dream (dreamt), dwell (dwelt), kneel (knelt), lean (leant), leap (leapt), learn (learnt), smell (smelt), spell (spelt), spill (spilt), and spoil (spoilt). But those forms are considered standard, whereas "earnt" is often considered non-standard.