income

noun

Etymology: From Middle English income, perhaps continuing (in altered form) Old English incyme (“an in-coming, entrance”), equivalent to in- + come. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Íenkúumen (“income”), West Frisian ynkommen (“income”), Dutch inkomen, inkomst (“income, earnings, gainings”), German Low German Inkumst (“income”), German Einkommen, Einkunft (“income, earnings, competence”), Danish indkomst (“income”), Swedish inkomst (“income”), Icelandic innkváma (“income”).

1. Money one earns by working or by capitalising on the work of others.

   “The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs. Their income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by the thirsty ground.”

   “In 1970 the richest 1 percent made 9 percent of the nation’s income; now that top slice makes closer to 25 percent.”

2. Money coming in to a fund, account, or policy.
3. A coming in; arrival; entrance; introduction.

   “more abundant incomes of light and strength from God”

   “Pain payes the income of ech precious thing,”

4. A newcomer or arrival; an incomer.
5. An entrance-fee.
6. A coming in as by influx or inspiration, hence, an inspired quality or characteristic, as courage or zeal; an inflowing principle.

   “I would then make in indeed and steep / My income in their bloods.”

7. A disease or ailment without known or apparent cause, as distinguished from one induced by accident or contagion; an oncome.
8. That which is taken into the body as food; the ingesta; sometimes restricted to the nutritive, or digestible, portion of the food.