Unearned describes money that comes to you without you working for it. 'Unearned income' is the standard phrase, and it is a real technical term in tax and finance: money from rent, from interest on savings, from share dividends, from a trust. Your salary is earned income; the interest your bank pays you is unearned income. Governments care about the difference because the two are often taxed differently. Note that in this financial sense, 'unearned' is not an accusation. Nobody is saying the landlord cheated. It is a category, like 'part-time' — it only tells you where the money came from, not whether the person deserved it. That surprises students, because the everyday feeling of the word is quite different. Outside finance, 'unearned' does carry a sting: 'an unearned reputation', 'unearned praise', 'an unearned advantage' all mean you got something you did not deserve, and the speaker is not happy about it. So the same word is neutral in a tax office and sharp in an argument. Read the noun beside it to know which one you have. Though actually, there is a third home for it in accounting that catches people out: 'unearned revenue' means money a company has already received but has not yet done the work for — a customer paid in advance. It sits on the books as a debt, not a profit, because the company still owes the service. Same word, quite a different idea: not 'money we didn't deserve' but 'money we haven't finished earning yet'.