Definitions for early
ˈɜr liear·ly

Princeton's WordNet(2.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. earlyadjective

   at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time

   "early morning"; "an early warning"; "early diagnosis"; "an early death"; "took early retirement"; "an early spring"; "early varieties of peas and tomatoes mature before most standard varieties"

2. earlyadjective

   being or occurring at an early stage of development

   "in an early stage"; "early forms of life"; "early man"; "an early computer"

3. early(a), former(a), other(a)adjective

   belonging to the distant past

   "the early inhabitants of Europe"; "former generations"; "in other times"

4. earlyadjective

   very young

   "at an early age"

5. earlyadjective

   of an early stage in the development of a language or literature

   "the Early Hebrew alphabetical script is that used mainly from the 11th to the 6th centuries B.C."; "Early Modern English is represented in documents printed from 1476 to 1700"

6. earlyadverb

   expected in the near future

   "look for an early end to the negotiations"

7. early on, earlyadverb

   during an early stage

   "early on in her career"

8. early, ahead of time, too soonadverb

   before the usual time or the time expected

   "she graduated early"; "the house was completed ahead of time"

9. early, betimesadverb

   in good time

   "he awoke betimes that morning"

Wiktionary(2.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. earlynoun

   A shift (scheduled work period) that takes place early in the day.

   Etymology: From erly, erli, ærlice, from ær + adverbial suffix -lice. Cognate with Old Norse árla ( > Danish and Norwegian årle, Swedish arla)

2. earlyadverb

   At a time before expected; sooner than usual.

   We finished the project an hour sooner than scheduled, so we left early.

   Etymology: From erly, erli, ærlice, from ær + adverbial suffix -lice. Cognate with Old Norse árla ( > Danish and Norwegian årle, Swedish arla)

3. earlyadjective

   At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.

   Etymology: From erly, erli, ærlice, from ær + adverbial suffix -lice. Cognate with Old Norse árla ( > Danish and Norwegian årle, Swedish arla)

4. earlyadjective

   Arriving a time before expected; sooner than on-time.

   Etymology: From erly, erli, ærlice, from ær + adverbial suffix -lice. Cognate with Old Norse árla ( > Danish and Norwegian årle, Swedish arla)

5. earlyadjective

   Near the start or beginning.

   Etymology: From erly, erli, ærlice, from ær + adverbial suffix -lice. Cognate with Old Norse árla ( > Danish and Norwegian årle, Swedish arla)

Webster Dictionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Earlyadverb

   soon; in good season; seasonably; betimes; as, come early

   Etymology: [OE. erli, erliche, AS. rlce; r sooner + lc like. See Ere, and Like.]

2. Earlyadverb

   in advance of the usual or appointed time; in good season; prior in time; among or near the first; -- opposed to late; as, the early bird; an early spring; early fruit

   Etymology: [OE. erli, erliche, AS. rlce; r sooner + lc like. See Ere, and Like.]

3. Earlyadverb

   coming in the first part of a period of time, or among the first of successive acts, events, etc

   Etymology: [OE. erli, erliche, AS. rlce; r sooner + lc like. See Ere, and Like.]

Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Early

   Early is a city located in Brown County in west-central Texas. The population was 2,762 at the 2010 census. It is named for Walter U. Early, who donated land for the schools. It is home to the Early Independent School District and the Heartland Mall.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Early

   ėr′li, adj. in good season: at or near the beginning of the day: relating to the beginning: happening in the near future.—adv. near the beginning: soon.—n. Ear′liness.—Early and late, at all times; Early bird, an early riser; Early English (archit.), generally applied to the form of Gothic in which the pointed arch was first employed in Britain. The Early English succeeded the Norman towards the end of the 12th century, and merged into the Decorated at the end of the 13th.—Keep early hours, to rise and go to bed betimes; Small and early (coll.), applied to evening parties; The early bird catches the worm, a proverb in favour of early rising. [A.S. árlíce—ǽr, before.]

Matched Categories

1. • Linguistics

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'early' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #311

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'early' in Written Corpus Frequency: #794

3. Adverbs Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'early' in Adverbs Frequency: #124

4. Adjectives Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'early' in Adjectives Frequency: #18

Anagrams for early »

1. relay, re-lay

2. layer

How to pronounce early?

1. Alex

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

How to say early in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of early in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of early in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of early in a Sentence

1. Charlie Sheen:

   I've reached out to them and they've reached back, we're trying to figure out what makes the most sense. If they figure it out like I've presented it to them and they want to include me in some final send-off, I'm available and I'm showing up early. If not, it's on them.

2. Wolfango Piccoli:

   Davutoglu's likely early exit as party leader and PM constitutes another episode that show that Erdogan's dominance over the AKP and the executive is absolute and unchallenged, in the short term policy paralysis will prevail and then, once a new party leader is elected, a more incisive effort to amend the constitution could ensue.

3. Daniel Kozlowski:

   We're only interested in special situations, such as spinoffs, in biotech because so much of that market is so expensive. We prefer instead to go places where there's little interest and be in early and get out early.

4. Carrie Underwood:

   I kind of planned that 2017 was, you know, going to be the year that I work on new music, and I have a baby, we got pregnant early 2017, and it did n’t work out.

5. Jonathan Murray:

   I think what the real power of the series was, particularly in those early years, is that we brought people on to the television screen who had been ignored by television, you didn't regularly see LGBT people, and there was very little representation of black people or Latino people.

Images & Illustrations of early

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