Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wikipedia
Private income is either:
- any type of income received by a private individual or household, often derived from occupational activities, or
- income of an individual that is not in the form of a salary (e.g. income from investments).
Many people with a private income of the second type are comfortably or well off and may not need a job for additional income. People in such a position can have other pursuits, e.g., as a philanthropist, or in the past as a gentleman scientist. Today among America's 146,000 highest income households, those making more than $1.6 million per year, 31% of all income was derived from investments.
Usage examples of "private income".
His generosity took a practical form, for he had a private income from his familys sherry business, and since as an Oratorian he was not obliged to surrender his property to the community he could use his money for his own purposes.
In any case, a bachelor with his own rooms in college is hardly in need of a vast private income.
They could have lived better, for John Dermott had a private income of about a thousand a year, but already the shadow of an early retirement from the Navy lay upon him.
He has virtually no private income, and he had to sell the farms that were attached to Rudely in order to save the house.
There may be other professions which call for a fiercer display of energy, but for the man with a private income who has loitered through life at his own pace, a little school-mastering is brisk enough to be a wonderful tonic.