Word Confusion: Earn versus Urn

Third person present verb: earns
Past tense or past participle:

• earned
• earnt (non-standard British)

Present participle: earning

Plural for the noun: urns

Third person present verb: urns
Past tense or past participle: urned
Present participle: urning

To gain income

[Obsolete] To grieve ²

To long

• To yearn

Verb, transitive:
Obtain (money) in return for labor or services ¹

• [Of an activity] Cause (someone) to obtain (money)
• [Of capital invested] Gain (money) as interest or profit
• Gain deservedly in return for one’s behavior or achievements

[British, dialect, dated] To curdle, as milk ³

Noun:
A large, decorative, or rounded vase with a base, especially one with an ornamental foot or pedestal, and often a stem, especially one used for storing the ashes of a cremated person ²

A large metal container with a tap, in which tea or coffee is made and kept hot, or water for making hot drinks is boiled

[Botany] The spore-bearing part of the capsule of a moss, between lid and seta

Verb, transitive:
[Archaic[ Place (something) in an urn ²

Frank invested in securities that earn on a quarterly basis.

All the children are earning now.

I’ve paid as I’ve earned.

It was twice what he earned.

His illness has affected his ability to earn.

“And ever as he rode, his heart did earn / To prove his puissance in battle brave.” – Edmund Spenser, The Fairy Queen, Volume 1

Verb, transitive:
They earn $35 per hour.

He earns his living as a truck driver.

This latest win earned them $50,000 in prize money.

We had a fantastic lunch, but we felt we had earned it.

Your dollars can be placed on deposit and earn interest.

Through the years she has earned affection and esteem.

His fielding has earned him a place in the starting lineup.

His media advisers were earning their keep.

My experience is that most authors don’t earn out.

Don’t confuse earning out the advance with being profitable.

“Since naething’s away, as we can learn, / The kirn’s to kirn, and milk to earn, / Gae butt the house, lass, and waken my bairn, / And bid her come quickly ben.” – “The Gaberlunzie Man”, Herd’s Collection, ii. 50.

In order to ensure the global uniqueness of URN namespaces, their identifiers (NIDs) are required to be registered with the IANA. Registered namespaces may be “formal” or “informal”.

“Both URN and URL are types of a concept called the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)” (Tech).

Noun:
We found an urn that Mom would have loved.

Peter picked up an urn for Uncle Tom.

“Last year, a new columbarium added 20,000 spots, which can each fit multiple urns” (Glazer).

Get out all the tea urns, Martha. There will be a lot of people.

Once the power was restored, the members, led by the emergency services manager, boiled up urns of water for teas and coffees and cooked bacon baps by the dozen.

Urn moss is characterized by urn-shaped or top-shaped capsules (spore cases) with lobed, hoodlike coverings” (Hosch).

Verb, transitive:
I cried when they urned Dad’s ashes.

Urn those ashes now, Ned.

We urned twenty-three people last week.

1. Old English earnian is of West Germanic origin, from a base shared by the Old English esne meaning laborer and related to the Old High German arnēn meaning to reap, the Old Saxon asna meaning salary, tithe.
2. First recorded in 1570–80; perhaps as a variant of yearn.
3. Proto-Indo-European ren- became the Proto-Germanic rinnaną meaning (of liquid) to flow, to run, to rush (move quickly), which evolved into the Old English rinnan, iernan, which became the English earn.

1. December 1994 in a memo, “Functional Requirements for Uniform Resource Names”, written by K. Sollins and L. Masinter of the Xerox Corporation.
2. Late Middle English from the Latin urna is related to urceus meaning pitcher.