Other forms: earlier, earliest
Early means before the expected time — an early train, arriving early, an early start. It works as both adjective and adverb without changing shape, which is a small mercy.
It also means near the beginning of a period, and that is the sense in early morning, the early 1990s, an early draft. Learners should note that the comparative is earlier and the superlative earliest, formed from the -y like happy, and that early does not take more. Watch the opposite too: the opposite of early in the first sense is late, but in the second sense it is later or the end of, and early days is a fixed phrase meaning it is too soon to judge.
1adjectiveearlyHappening before the usual or expected time.~7%
“We caught an early train to be safe.”
synonyms: ahead of time
2adverbusualBefore the usual or expected time.~27%
“She arrived early and waited outside.”
3adjectivebeginningNear the beginning of a period.~66%
“It rained through the early part of the week.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
early is a position in time.
Early is ere plus ly, in the manner of before. Old English ārlīċe meant early in the morning in particular, which is still the hour the word reaches for first.
Old English
ǣrlīċ — early
Middle English
erly
English, today
early
From Middle English erly, erlich, earlich, from Old English ǣrlīċ (“early”), equivalent to ere + ly.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA