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Earlier   /ˈərliər/   Listen
Earlier

adverb
1.
Earlier in time; previously.  Synonym: 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"
2.
Comparatives of 'soon' or 'early'.  Synonym: sooner.  "Came earlier than I expected"
3.
Before now.  Synonyms: in the beginning, in the first place, originally, to begin with.
adjective
1.
(comparative and superlative of 'early') more early than; most early.  Synonym: earliest.  "His earlier work reflects the influence of his teacher" , "Verdi's earliest and most raucous opera"


Early

adjective
(compar. earlier; superl. earliest)
1.
At or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time.  "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.
Being or occurring at an early stage of development.  "Early forms of life" , "Early man" , "An early computer"
3.
Belonging to the distant past.  Synonyms: former, other.  "Former generations" , "In other times"
4.
Very young.
5.
Of an early stage in the development of a language or literature.  "Early Modern English is represented in documents printed from 1476 to 1700"
6.
Expected in the near future.



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earlyish


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Earlier" Quotes from Famous Books



... sweetness, but there had been a tang of something in the cup that cloyed the palate and sickened the soul. She had learned the love of man, and in a measure it had cast out fear, that had been her earlier lesson. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the Old, and our transition is still swift enough to be a spectacle, as was its earlier phase which gave over our Middle West to cabins and plough horses, with a tendency away from wigwams and bob-whites. And in this local warfare between Old and New a chief figure is Calliope Marsh—who just said that about the new doctor. She is a little rosy wrinkled creature officially—though ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... seemed to be speaking as our statesmen of the Revolutionary time, and the time of framing our Constitution. He used to speak to all generations alike. What he had to say would have been true and apt and fit to be uttered in the earlier days of Athens and Rome, and true and apt and fit to be uttered for thousands of years to come. He had, in a large measure, a failing which all Englishmen have, and always had; the notion that what is good for England is good ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... more instances of so familiar a phrase, though perhaps it may not be out of the way to remark, that miss is used by Andrewes as a substantive in the same sense as the verb, namely, in vol. v. p. 176.: the more usual form being misture, or, earlier, mister. Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, most unaccountably treats these two forms as distinct words; and yet, more unaccountably, collecting the import of misture for the context, gives it the signification of misfortune!! He quotes Nash's Pierce Pennilesse; ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... Therefore, to men on fire for reform, he came to seem an obstacle and an official apologist." After G.K. became Editor of the New Witness the attacks on Masterman ceased, but he did not differ from the two earlier Editors in his views on the ethics of political action or the principles of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward


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