Reinhold Niebuhr
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What do you call a building in which grain is stored? These days, English speakers are most likely to call it a granary, but there was a time when garner was also a good candidate. That noun made its way into the language in the 12th century (ultimately from Latin granum, "grain"); the verb garner followed three centuries later with a closely related meaning: "to gather into a granary." Today the verb has largely abandoned its agrarian roots—it usually means "to earn" or "to accumulate." Meanwhile the noun garner is rare in contemporary use. It's found mostly in older literary contexts, such as these lines from Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor: "Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn."
Examples of garner in a Sentence
Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 13 June 2026
The account quickly garnered thousands of likes each day and more than 30,000 followers.
—Philip Wang, Time, 12 June 2026
Coming back five weeks later and again garnering glory in the Belmont Stakes with a horse many thought was not capable has put her name in lights.
—Danny Brewer, Forbes.com, 12 June 2026
When steel towns shrink Two decades ago the mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, Jay Williams, garnered national attention by pushing policies that accepted the city’s population would never return to its former peak.
—Christopher Briem, The Conversation, 12 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for garner
Cite this Entry
“Garner.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garner. Accessed 15 Jun. 2026.
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Garner
biographical name
