unearned
adjective
Simple meaning
Not gained by merit or labor or service.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnurndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈnɝnd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Not gained by merit or labor or service
“Accepted the unearned rewards that came his ways as well as the unearned criticism.”
Not earned.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Not gained by merit or labor or service
Used this way, unearned is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“Accepted the unearned rewards that came his ways as well as the unearned criticism.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use unearned
- “Accepted the unearned rewards that came his ways as well as the unearned criticism.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Personal income that you did not earn (e.g., dividends or interest or rent income).
An unearned rise in the market value of property resulting from general market factors.
Personal income that you did not earn (e.g., dividends or interest or rent income).
A run that was scored as a result of an error by the other team.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: not gained by merit or labor or service
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.