Unearned

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  1.  Not earned by merit or desert; unmerited or undeserved (as reward or punishment).

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 33. Deflen … bireueden him [Adam] alle his riche weden, þat waren unerned giue, and undeðlicnesse.

1599.  Shaks., Mids. N., V. i. 439. If we haue vnearned lucke, Now to scape the Serpents tongue, We will make amends ere long.

1796.  Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, II. 383. The sufferings, so utterly unearned by fault or by folly, of a sister so dear to her.

1805.  Wordsw., Prelude, VI. 168. Such dispositions then were mine unearned By aught, I fear, of genuine desert.

  2.  Not cained by labor; not worked for.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 225. Casual discourse … intermits Our dayes work brought to little,… and th’ hour of Supper comes unearn’d.

1708.  J. Philips, Cyder, I. 374. Wilt thou … rather chuse To lye supinely, hoping Heav’n will … give thee Bread unearn’d?

1799.  Coleridge, Ode to Duchess of Devonsh., 17. Rich viands … Were yours unearned by toil.

1850.  Grote, Greece, II. lxii. VIII. 53. This anticipation of an unearned salary.

1873.  Hamerton, Intell. Life, I. iii. 11. One of the unearned gifts of nature.

  b.  Unearned increment, such increase in the value of land or property as takes place without labor or expenditure on the part of the owner.

1873.  J. S. Mill, in Dissert. & Discuss. (1875), IV. 299. The detention by the State of the unearned increment of rent.

1884.  in A. Cawston, Street Improv. London (1893), 115. The increased value, the unearned increment of this property.