▪ I. income, n.1
(ˈɪnkəm)
Also 4–7 in-com, incom, in-come, 6 incomme, (incombe, incumb).
[f. in adv. + come v.: cf. income v., and come in, come v. 63.]
1. a. Coming in, entrance, arrival, advent; beginning (of a period of time, or an action). Now rare.
| a 1300 Cursor M. 11127 At þe income of þe firth monet [v.r. first moneth] Ioseph him went to nazareth. ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 2171 But Kayous at the income was kepyd un-fayre With a cowarde knyghte of þe kythe ryche. 1566 Drant Horace, Sat. i. vi. (R.), At mine income, I lowted lowe, and muttred full demure. 1593 Shakes. Lucr. 334 Pain pays the income of each precious thing. c 1611 Chapman Iliad xvii. 482, I would then make in indeed, and steep My income in their bloods, in aid of good Patroclus. a 1670 Bp. Rust in Glanvill Lux Orient. (1682) 192 Incomes of light and shade. 1840 New Monthly Mag. LX. 267 An annual income of one child, always strong and thriving, sometimes twins. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 25 Feb. 5/3 Where the management..do not systematically check the income of provisions supplied. |
b. spec. The coming in of divine influence into the soul; spiritual influx or communication. (Common in 17th c.: now
Obs. or
rare.)
| 1647 J. Heydon Discov. Preserv. Fairfax 11 God hath..given you large experience of the incomes of God through Jesus Christ. 1678 R. Barclay Apol. Quakers xi. x. 368 The pure Incomes of his holy Life..flow in upon them. a 1694 J. Scott Wks. (1718) II. 375 Among the Turkish and heathen saints, there are as notorious instances of these sweet incomes and manifestations, as among our own. a 1708 Beveridge Thes. Theol. (1711) III. 412 Consider..what incomes of His grace..God vouchsafed to you. [1849 Whittier Marg. Smith's Jrnl. Prose Wks. 1889 I. 161 She said..that no eye could see..the sweet incomes and refreshings of the Lord's spirit.] |
† c. The act of ‘coming in’ with something (
e.g. a statement or argument); the fact of being ‘brought in’ or adduced.
Obs.| 1654 Jer. Taylor Real Pres. 23 Therefore we have the income of so many Fathers as are cited by the Canon-Law..to be partly a warrant. |
† 2. A place at which one comes in, an entry or entrance.
Obs.| a 1300 Cursor M. 10546 Quen þou ert common to þe cite O ierusalem, atte gilden yate, Þar es an in-com [Trin. an entre] þat sua hatt. |
† 3. A fee paid on coming in or entering; entry-money, entrance-fee.
Obs.| 1549 Latimer 2nd Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 50 Thy Tennant.. whom, wyth newe Incomes, fynes..and such lyke vnreasonable exactions, thou pilles, polles, and miserablie oppresses. 1549 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 199 What Proffitts and Incumbs are due to the Bailiffs. 1579 MS. Indenture, Mappleton, Yks., 400 marks paid for a fyne or incombe. 1646 Bridge Serm. John i. 16. 27 There are no In-com's, no Incom's to be paid at our coming in to Jesus Christ. 1662 J. Strype Let. in E. F. King Life Newton 23, I shall have to pay but 10s. a year [for my chamber] besides my income, which may be about 40s. or thereabouts. 1712 Act 12 Anne c. 4 §4 So as no Fine Income or other Consideration be taken for the same. |
† 4. A person who comes in or has come in; a new-comer, incomer, immigrant.
Obs.| 1555 W. Watreman Fardle Facions i. iii. 35 Fower sondrie peoples, of the whiche..twaine ware alienes and incommes. 1570 Levins Manip. 161/45 Income, incola, aduena. 1804 W. Tarras Poems 14 (Jam.) Lat's try this income, how he stands, An' eik us sib by shakin' hands. |
† 5. A thing that comes in (in addition, or by the way); something added or incidental.
Obs.| 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. xiii. 76 Where as God promised the land of Chanaan..this was no parte of that Countrie: he gaue them this as an income or overplus. 1587 ― De Mornay ii. 22 Euill is neither a nature nor a substance, but an income or accident which is falne into natures and substances. 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. xiii. lxxxviii. (1612) 322 But not that yll, productiuely, from Nature firstly springs. But as an In-come, hapning in the substance. |
6. a. spec. That which comes in as the periodical produce of one's work, business, lands, or investments (considered in reference to its amount, and commonly expressed in terms of money); annual or periodical receipts accruing to a person or corporation; revenue. Formerly also in
pl. = Receipts, emoluments, profits; but the plural is now used only in reference to more than one person. (The prevailing sense.)
| 1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 196 Paying the expence of one yere with the income of another. 1633 Herbert Temple, Ch. Porch xxvii, Never exceed thy income. 1646 H. Lawrence Comm. Angells 152 Hee hath beene at a great deale of paines and cost; now what are his in-comes? 1652 C. B. Stapylton Herodian 16 He scraped still and never was content, But studied more his Incoms to augment. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. ii. 285 No Fields afford So large an Income to the Village Lord. 1789 Loiterer No. 43. 10 Having lived, what is called up to his income, that is a good deal above it. 1802 Med. Jrnl. VIII. 229 Income, in its usual acceptation, is a loose and vague term; it applies equally to gross receipts and to net produce: But when the Legislature had limited it to be synonimous with profits and gains, it became as clear and precise as any other word. 1866 Geo. Eliot F. Holt ii. I. 76 No, I shan't attack the Church—only the incomes of the bishops, perhaps, to make them eke out the incomes of the poor clergy. |
(
ii)
national income: the income of a nation as a whole,
spec. the aggregate amount available for distribution among the agents of production.
| 1878 Encycl. Brit. VIII. 258/1 The income tax returns given in the preceding tables furnish important materials for ascertaining, if only approximately, the national income of England. 1925 S. E. Thomas Elem. Econ. xvi. 214 The total of the national income represents not only the reward which flows to land, capital, labour and enterprise: it is also the total available in the hands of all members of the community for purchasing goods and services. 1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Feb. 124/2 The national income may be divided into the income (wages, salaries and interest) of the producers of capital and consumable goods respectively. 1964 Gould & Kolb Dict. Social Sci. 452/2 The term national income is used in a generic sense to refer to the net value of all economic goods and services produced by a nation during a particular time, usually a calendar year... In a more specific sense{ddd}it denotes the aggregate of all income payments accruing to the factors of production. 1971 A. Shonfield in A. Bullock 20th Cent. 327/1 Many of the European nations were used to earning up to one-quarter of their national income through sales abroad. |
b. fig. Profit, proceeds; result, ‘harvest’. Also in
pl. (
obs.).
| 1635 Rutherford Let. to M. Macknaught 8 July, Christ will not be in your common to have you giving out anything for Him and not give you all incomes with advantage. 1687 Bp. Cartwright in Magdalen Coll. & Jas. II (O.H.S.) 116 They are..afraid of the income of their evil practices. a 1902 S. Butler Notebks. (1912) i. 12 All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. 1939 T. S. Eliot Family Reunion ii. ii. 105 It is as if I had been living all these years upon my capital, Instead of earning my spiritual income daily. 1953 A. Huxley Let. 16 Nov. (1969) 688 He was a retired business man, living beyond his intellectual income. |
c. transf. That which is taken in, as food (with reference to amount).
| 1896 Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 162 Physiologists have shewn that the minimum daily income required by a healthy man performing his average daily work and maintaining his usual body weight is five per cent. of that body weight. |
7. attrib. and
Comb. (in sense 6), as
income account,
income bracket,
income level;
income-earning,
income-producing adj.;
income bonds, bonds of a corporation or company, the interest of which is not cumulative, secured by a lien upon the net income of each several year, after payment of interest upon prior mortgages;
income funds,
investment,
share,
stock, investments regarded primarily as a source of income;
income group, a section of the population graded according to income;
incomes policy, a policy introduced in the
U.K. by the Labour Government of 1964–70 for the control of inflation by attempting to restrict increases in wages, salaries, dividends, etc.; any similar programme.
| 1869 Bradshaw's Railway Manual XXI. 419 Add balance to credit of income account. |
| 1889 Daily News 29 Nov. 6/2 In America, Income bonds are something like preference stock in England, but carrying no voting rights. |
| 1940 Income bracket [see bracket n. 5 c]. 1947 Partisan Rev. XIV. 482 The hard core of the stratum that lives off ideas..are the graduates of the fashionable Eastern colleges whose social origin is in the upper income-bracket groups. 1969 Times 30 Sept. 11/8 Good citizenship is not decided by income brackets. 1972 Listener 6 Apr. 467/1 A poor cabbie loses his girl because her family don't like his income bracket. |
| 1909 Daily Chron. 22 Feb. 1/4 No doubt many an ‘old alibi’ has won the pension for some young wage-earning or income-earning person. 1946 Koestler Thieves in Night 88 Of these, 6,624 Work Days were spent on income-earning labour. 1969 Times 15 Nov. 16/1 The neglected income funds are..coming back into favour. |
| 1934 B. J. Newman in Encycl. Social Sci. XIV. 93 s.v. Slum, The worst structural and sanitary conditions and the most degraded occupancy, usually by the lowest income groups, of any given period. 1936 Discovery Apr. 98/2 For the income-groups below the adequacy level an increased consumption of milk, butter, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and meat is desirable. 1957 J. Braine Room at Top vii. 62 She possessed the necessary face and figure and the right income group. 1970 Listener 21 May 687/1 The boom in Swiss industry after the war led to..a flood of foreign workers, mostly Italians and Spaniards of the lowest income-groups. |
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 22 Oct. 9/3 This would give a good prospect of dividend for the ordinary shares, and so make those shares not a bad ‘income’ investment. |
| 1928 M. Dobb Wages vi. 113 The potential supply of lawyers or doctors..will be almost entirely confined..to children of parents above the income-level which makes possible a somewhat costly public school and university career. 1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 117/2 What would you say was the income level of this family group? 1955 T. H. Pear Eng. Social Differences 136 According to occupation or income-level. |
| 1965 New Statesman 19 Mar. 434/1 When he first goes into battle over a wage claim or a price increase—when an incomes policy is first translated into action. 1966 Listener 17 Mar. 391/1 The kind of incomes policy they advocate requires unemployment and short-time working to make it effective. 1969 H. Perkin Key Profession v. 181 In terms of an incomes policy a long-term change in relativities was desirable in the national interest in order to restore the universities to a position from which they could compete. 1972 Listener 24 Aug. 239/2 The publicly and privately expressed views of the Bank of England that a formal incomes policy of some kind was needed. |
| 1894 Sir J. Hutton in Daily News 25 July 7/3 The acquisition of income-producing undertakings, such as tramways, water supply, &c. |
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 22 Oct. 9/3 Looking upon their shares as ‘income shares’ only. 1958 Spectator 27 June 849/3 A number of so-called ‘income’ shares in the consumer goods trades. |
| Ibid., The yields on ‘income’ stocks. |
▸
income support n. money provided as a supplement to the income of an individual or family income;
spec. a means-tested welfare benefit introduced by the British government in 1988 to replace supplementary benefit.
| 1969 B. L. Heineman et al. Poverty amid Plenty (U.S. President's Comm.) v. 63/1 The basic *income support program recommended by the Commission, if enacted, would represent only a first step toward assuring an adequate income for all persons. 1978 H. Parker (title) Who pays for the children? A new approach to Family Income Support. 1985 Daily Tel. 4 June 6/6 Income support is the name of the new benefit which will replace Supplementary benefit, criticised by the Green Paper as too difficult for claimants to understand and too complex for staff to run. 1996 Independent 11 Sept. 15/4 Family credit..will be offered to anyone between the ages of 16 and 64 to see if more people can be lifted off income support and back into work with a similar wage subsidy called employment top-up (ETU). |
▪ II. † income, n.2 Sc. and
north. dial. (
ˈɪnkʌm)
[f. in adv. + come. Cf. the earlier an-come, oncome.] A morbid affection of any part of the body, a swelling, impostume, tumour, or the like.
| 1808 in Jamieson. 1822 Galt Sir A. Wylie III. xxii. 191 She had got an income in the right arm, and couldna spin. 1825 Brockett N.C. Gloss., Income, any swelling or other bodily infirmity, not apparently proceeding from any external cause..or which has formed unexpectedly. Ancome, in the same sense, is an old word. 1834 M. Scott Cruise Midge (1863) 195 An Income is a tumour, sir; and mine was a very bad one. 1859 J. Brown Rab & F. (1862) 13 She's got a trouble in her breast—some kind o' an income we're thinkin'. |
▪ III. † inˈcome, v. Obs. [OE. incuman = OHG. inqueman, inchomen (MHG. înkomen, Ger. einkommen), MDu., MLG. incomen, Du. inkomen; Da. indkomme, Sw. inkomma. Not an original compound vb., but a collocation of in adv. + come v.: see in- prefix1 and in adv. 1 b. Now replaced by come in: see come v. 63.] intr. To come in, to enter.
| c 1000 ælfric Lev. xxiii. 10 And þonne ᵹe incumaþ on þæt land þe ic eow sille. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 1112 To kepe þe emperours folc ar hii to ver in come. a 1300 E.E. Psalter xxiii[i]. 7 King of blisse in come sal he. 13.. Coer de L. 3305 So that ye lat us inne come..They leten hem in come anon. Ibid. 3991 Thoo the cunstable herd telle, That the Crystene wer incomen. |