EARLY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Early

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈərli/ Listen

adjective

Early adj. (compar. earlier; superl. earliest)

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." "The doorsteps and threshold with the early grass springing up about them."

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." "The forms of its earlier manhood." "The earliest poem he composed was in his seventeenth summer."

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.

Synonyms: Forward; timely; not late; seasonable.

adverb

Early adv. Soon; in good season; seasonably; betimes; as, come early. "Those that me early shall find me." "You must wake and call me early."

See images of 'Early'

Etymology of 'Early'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Early" Quotes from Famous Books

... well-accepted medicinal virtues which inhered in gems. Metals also had great medicinal potency. Antimony, lead, iron, mercury, were well known, and of special importance was copper, the Venus of the early chemists. ...

— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... surrounded them. She drew a plan for the boat-house, which was not only useful, but extremely picturesque. The hennery too, and the conservatory, were highly ornamental, distributed as they were about the grounds;—but it is too early to speak of these, which were not ...

— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie

... Leonardo da Vinci first used it. Great breadth and splendour is given by it to design, and it is one of the most impressive of tone arrangements. Leonardo da Vinci's "Our Lady of the Rocks," in the National Gallery, is an early example of this treatment. And Correggio's "Venus, Mercury, and Cupid," here reproduced, is another particularly fine example. Reynolds and many of the eighteenth-century men used this scheme in their work almost entirely. This strong light ...

— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... in civilized life and in Christendom that woman has shown herself wise in governing; even among the wildest savage tribes they have appeared, occasionally, as leaders and rulers. This is a singular fact. It may be proved from the history of this continent, and not only from the early records of Mexico and Cuba and Hayti, but also from the reports of the earliest navigators on our own coast, who here and there make mention incidentally of this or that female chief or sachem. But a fact far more impressive and truly elevating to the ...

— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... manner; but they calmly and smilingly turned up again by a late train, that same evening, to learn the gratifying news that Lady Elphinstone's return to the safety of her beautiful home had already produced a most beneficial effect upon her health, and that there was now every prospect of an early recovery from the bad effects of the shock that she ...

— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

More quotes...