Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The amount of money or its equivalent received during a period of time in exchange for labor or services, from the sale of goods or property, or as profit from financial investments.
  • noun The act of coming in; entrance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A coming in; arrival; entrance; introduction.
  • noun A new-comer or arrival; an incomer.
  • noun An entrance-fee.
  • noun A coming in as by influx or inspiration; hence, an inspired quality or characteristic, as courage or zeal; an inflowing principle.
  • noun A disease or ailment coming without known or apparent cause, as distinguished from one induced by accident or contagion. See ancome, oncome.
  • noun That which comes in to a person as payment for labor or services rendered in some office, or as gain from lands, business, the investment of capital, etc.; receipts or emoluments regularly accruing, either in a given time, or, when unqualified, annually; the annual receipts of a person or a corporation; revenue: as, an income of five thousand dollars; his income has been much reduced; the income from the business is small.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A coming in; entrance; admittance; ingress; infusion.
  • noun rare That which is caused to enter; inspiration; influence; hence, courage or zeal imparted.
  • noun That gain which proceeds from labor, business, property, or capital of any kind, as the produce of a farm, the rent of houses, the proceeds of professional business, the profits of commerce or of occupation, or the interest of money or stock in funds, etc.; revenue; receipts; salary; especially, the annual receipts of a private person, or a corporation, from property.
  • noun (Physiol.) That which is taken into the body as food; the ingesta; -- sometimes restricted to the nutritive, or digestible, portion of the food. See Food. Opposed to output.
  • noun a bond issued on the income of the corporation or company issuing it, and the interest of which is to be paid from the earnings of the company before any dividends are made to stockholders; -- issued chiefly or exclusively by railroad companies.
  • noun a tax upon a person's incomes, emoluments, profits, etc., or upon the excess beyond a certain amount.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A coming in; arrival; entrance; introduction.
  • noun archaic or dialectal, Scotland A new-comer or arrival; an incomer.
  • noun obsolete An entrance-fee.
  • noun archaic A coming in as by influx or inspiration, hence, an inspired quality or characteristic, as courage or zeal; an inflowing principle.
  • noun Scotland A disease or ailment without known or apparent cause, as distinguished between one induced by accident or contagion; an oncome.
  • noun or uncountable Money one earns by working or capitalising off other people's work.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, arrival, entrance, from incomen, to come in, from Old English incuman : in, in; see in + cuman, to come; see come.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, equivalent to in- +‎ come. Cognate with Dutch inkomen ("income, earnings, gainings"), German Einkommen ("income, earnings, competence"), Icelandic innkváma ("income"), Danish indkomst ("income"), Swedish inkomst ("income").

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