English

Alternative forms

• earned (standard spelling)

Verb

earnt

1. (chiefly British) simple past tense 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

• Written, this is an uncommon (<0.5% as common as earned in the British National Corpus) and non-standard 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: learn (learnt), dream (dreamt), spell (spelt).

Anagrams

• antre, aren't, Netra