early.
At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.
Meaning & usage
At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.
at eleven, we went for an early lunch; she began reading at an early age; his mother suffered an early death
Arriving a time before expected; sooner than on time.
You're early today! I don't usually see you before nine o'clock.
The early guests sipped their punch and avoided each other's eyes.
After but close to the start of a period of time.
The play "Two Gentlemen of Verona" is one of Shakespeare's early works.
Early results showed their winning 245 out of 300 seats in parliament. The main opponent locked up only 31 seats.
In the starting hours of the day.
It's too early for this sort of thing. I'm not awake yet.
Having begun to occur; in its early stages.
early cancer
harvesting early peaches
Of a star or class of stars, hotter than the sun.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English erly, erlich, earlich, from Old English ǣrlīċ (“early”, adjective), equivalent to ere + -ly.
A shift (scheduled work period) that takes place early in the day.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English erly, erlich, earlich, from Old English ǣrlīċ (“early”, adjective), equivalent to ere + -ly.
At a time before expected; sooner than usual.
We finished the project an hour sooner than scheduled, so we left early.
I had children too early (in life), so my first baby arrived early.
Soon; in good time; seasonably.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ey- Proto-Indo-European *-eri Proto-Indo-European *h₂éyeri Proto-Germanic *airi Proto-Germanic *airiz Old English ǣr Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Old English ǣrlīċe Middle English erly English early From Middle English erly, orely, arely, erliche, arliche, from Old English ǣrlīċe, ārlīċe (“early; early in the morning”, adverb), equivalent to ere + -ly. Cognate with Old Norse árliga, árla ( > Danish årle, Swedish arla, Norwegian årle, Faroese árla).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.