What does earlier mean?

Definitions for earlier
ear·li·er

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word earlier.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. earlier, earliestadverb

    (comparative and superlative of `early') more early than; most early

    "a fashion popular in earlier times"; "his earlier work reflects the influence of his teacher"; "Verdi's earliest and most raucous opera"

  2. earlier, beforeadverb

    earlier in time; previously

    "I had known her before"; "as I said before"; "he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"; "her parents had died four years earlier"; "I mentioned that problem earlier"

  3. sooner, earlieradverb

    comparatives of `soon' or `early'

    "Come a little sooner, if you can"; "came earlier than I expected"

  4. in the first place, earlier, in the beginning, to begin with, originallyadverb

    before now

    "why didn't you tell me in the first place?"

Wiktionary

  1. earlieradverb

    previously; before now; sooner

    I shall be late because I didn't start earlier.

  2. earlieradjective

    occurring previously

    I shall be late because I missed the earlier train.

ChatGPT

  1. earlier

    Earlier refers to a point in time before the present or before the time under consideration. It could also mean preceding in rank, precedence, order, or importance.

British National Corpus

  1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'earlier' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #1091

  2. Written Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'earlier' in Written Corpus Frequency: #948

  3. Adverbs Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'earlier' in Adverbs Frequency: #103

How to pronounce earlier?

How to say earlier in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of earlier in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of earlier in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of earlier in a Sentence

  1. Mitch McConnell:

    As I said earlier, and I think you already know, we have hired a female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions in a respectful and professional way, we want this hearing to be handled very professionally, not a political sideshow like you saw the -- put on by the Democrats when they were questioning Brett Kavanaugh.

  2. Myron Richardson:

    This is home…why can’t I have the same opportunity as everybody else in the world to work from home--why do I have to leave because they want to shut the plant down earlier than what the federal government has regulated them to.

  3. Matt Burkey:

    The findings of this analysis support the idea that earlier interventions, especially in the preschool period, are more effective, once children are older, parents have somewhat less influence over children’s behavior.

  4. Lisa Callahan:

    This approach delivers an earlier landing capability featuring reusable technology that also lays a foundation for a future expanded, sustainable human presence at the moon, this is an aggressive but achievable schedule and could be the catalyst to help jump-start a new era of human exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond.

  5. David Meger:

    We had an excessive slide in the equity markets. We saw the dollar give up some of its earlier gains.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

earlier#1#2364#10000

Translations for earlier

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

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"earlier." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/earlier>.

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    a British imperial capacity measure (liquid or dry) equal to 4 quarts or 4.545 liters
    A auspices
    B collation
    C congius
    D impounding

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