deserve

From Middle English deserven, from Old French deservir, from Latin dēserviō, from dē- + serviō.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈzɜːv/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪˈzɝv/
• Hyphenation: de‧serve

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)v

deserve (third-person singular simple present deserves, present participle deserving, simple past and past participle deserved)

1. To be entitled to, as a result of past actions; to be worthy to have.

   After playing so well, the team really deserved their win.

   After what he did, he deserved to go to prison.

   This argument deserves a closer examination.

   • Bible, Job xi. 6

     God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

   • Thackeray

     John Gay deserved to be a favourite.

2. (obsolete) To earn, win.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.vii:

     That gentle Lady, whom I loue and serue, / After long suit and weary seruicis, / Did aske me, how I could her loue deserue, / And how she might be sure, that I would neuer swerue.

3. (obsolete) To reward, to give in return for service.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xxx, in Le Morte Darthur, book VIII:

     Gramercy saide the kynge / & I lyue sir Lambegus I shal deserue hit / And thenne sir Lambegus armed hym / and rode after as fast as he myghte

   • 1603?, William Shakespeare, Othello:

     Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call; / I may command at most. Get weapons, ho! / And raise some special officers of night. / On, good Roderigo: I'll deserve your pains.

4. (obsolete) To serve; to treat; to benefit.
   • Massinger

     A man that hath / So well deserved me.

• This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. See Appendix:English catenative verbs

• merit
• See also Thesaurus:deserve

• well-deserved

• desert
• serve somebody right

• deserve in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• deserve in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Veeders, severed