income
Pluralincomes
- 1Money that a person, household or organization receives, especially regularly, from work, business, investments or other sources.
Their household income rose after she took a second job.
Rental properties can provide a steady income without daily work.
UsageYou earn or live on an income (a steady income); income from a job; families on a low income.
- 2Someone who has recently moved into a community from elsewhere; an incomer.
Note
A Scots and dialect use that names the person rather than the arrival: someone new to a settled place. The longer form incomer carries the same meaning without the clash. A modern reader will take a sentence about an income to be about money, so outside Scottish or deliberately archaic writing, incomer or newcomer is the safe choice.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Income has a Scots dialect sense denoting a person newly arrived in a place. electricscotland.com
- Incomer denotes someone who moves into a community or place. en.wiktionary.org
- 3An inflowing of inspiration; an inspired quality such as courage or zeal.
I would then make in indeed and steep / My income in their bloods.
[1611?], Homer, The Iliads of Homer Prince of PoetsNote
Courage or zeal pictured as something flowing into a person from outside rather than rising from within. George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad (about 1611) gives a fierce version: "steep / My income in their bloods," with the warrior's inflowing fury plunged into his enemies. The usage is archaic. In modern prose, inspiration or influx carries the idea.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Income can represent courage infused into someone from outside. fiftywordsforsnow.com
- George Chapman translated Homer's Iliad, with the complete translation first published in 1611. apps.lib.umich.edu
- The quotation occurs in Chapman's Iliad, spoken by Menelaus as he imagines fighting with strength supplied by Minerva. gutenberg.org
Less common meanings
- 4The act of entering, arriving, or being introduced.
Pain payes the income of ech precious thing,
1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto)more abundant incomes of light and strength from God
1667, George Rust, A Funeral SermonNote
The literal coming-in that the word was built from, now gone from the language. Shakespeare's Lucrece (1594) has "Pain payes the income of ech precious thing," where a modern reader hears money but the line means arrival. The 17th-century bishop George Rust could still speak of "incomes of light and strength from God." In present-day writing, use arrival, entrance or introduction.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Income was formed from elements meaning literal coming-in. en.wiktionary.org
- Shakespeare wrote Lucrece, first published in 1594. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu
- The quotation reproduces a line in Lucrece. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- Income in the Shakespeare quotation means coming-in or arrival. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A fee paid on entering; an entrance-fee.
Note
A payment for coming in, closely tied to the old "arrival" meaning: what you paid was the price of your entering. The usage is obsolete, and any modern reader will take the word as earnings. Today, entrance fee or admission fee is the term to use.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Income historically meant a payment for entering, or an entrance fee. en.wiktionary.org
- 6What is taken into the body as food, sometimes only the nourishing or digestible part of it.
- 7A disease or ailment arising without known or apparent cause, unlike one caused by injury or infection.
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Origin
Already income in Middle English, it may be Old English incyme ("an in-coming, entrance") in an altered form, made up of in- and come. Dutch inkomen, German Einkommen, Danish indkomst and Swedish inkomst are relatives, all meaning "income."