Adjacent Words

earlier definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: (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" [syn: earlier, earliest] adv
1: 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" [syn: earlier, before]
2: comparatives of `soon' or `early'; "Come a little sooner, if you can"; "came earlier than I expected" [syn: sooner, earlier]
3: before now; "why didn't you tell me in the first place?" [syn: in the first place, earlier, in the beginning, to begin with, originally]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Early Ear"ly, a. [Compar. Earlier ([~e]r"l[i^]*[~e]r); superl. Earliest.] [OE. earlich. [root]204. See Early, adv.] 1. 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. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. --Burke. The doorsteps and threshold with the early grass springing up about them. --Hawthorne. 2. Coming in the first part of a period of time, or among the first of successive acts, events, etc. Seen in life's early morning sky. --Keble. The forms of its earlier manhood. --Longfellow. The earliest poem he composed was in his seventeenth summer. --J. C. Shairp. Early English (Philol.) See the Note under English. Early English architecture, the first of the pointed or Gothic styles used in England, succeeding the Norman style in the 12th and 13th centuries. Syn: Forward; timely; not late; seasonable.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. Earlier is the comparative of early. 2. Earlier is used to refer to a point or period in time before the present or before the one you are talking about. As mentioned earlier, the University supplements this information with an interview... Earlier, it had been hoped to use the indoor track. ...political reforms announced by the President earlier this year... Many years earlier, Grundy had given The Beatles their first television break. ADV: ADV with v, ADV with cl, oft amount ADV • Earlier is also an adjective. Earlier reports of gunshots have not been substantiated. ADJ: ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

aforetime, already, antecedent, anterior, anticipatory, as yet, before, before all, before now, beforehand, beforetime, ci-devant, down, early, elder, ere, ere then, erenow, erewhile, erst, erstwhile, first, fore, foregoing, former, formerly, heretofore, historically, hitherto, in the past, in times past, inferior, lower, lowest, nether, older, once, only yesterday, or ever, preceding, precurrent, preexistent, prehistorically, previous, previously, prime, prior, priorly, recently, senior, so far, sooner, subjacent, then, theretofore, thus far, under, whilom, yesterday, yet