[
UK
/ˈɜːlɪɐ/
]
[ US /ˈɝɫiɝ/ ]
[ US /ˈɝɫiɝ/ ]
ADJECTIVE
-
(comparative and superlative of `early') more early than; most early
Verdi's earliest and most raucous opera
a fashion popular in earlier times
his earlier work reflects the influence of his teacher
ADVERB
-
earlier in time; previously
I mentioned that problem earlier
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 had known her before -
comparatives of `soon' or `early'
Come a little sooner, if you can
came earlier than I expected -
before now
why didn't you tell me in the first place?
How To Use earlier In A Sentence
- Of course, it was snuffed out because Mars is tectonically dead, so the recycling of chemicals that you get on Earth which keeps things going and supplies the surface biosphere would have actually ceased on Mars a lot earlier.
- Not feeling hungry again until about ten that night, we strolled along to the same street that had earlier been alive with culinary possibilities. Times, Sunday Times
- Clearly the megalosaurus in the opening passage of Bleak House is a flight of hyperbolic fancy (inspired, I would guess, by the papier-mâché dinosaurs constructed for the Crystal Palace Exhibition, a couple of years earlier).
- We would have make it earlier, but I procrastinated with completed and sealed ballots sitting on my desk for a couple of days -- no good excuse, but the reminders to spare the GOTC callers (and ourselves) reminder calls goosed me into action. BlueOregon
- The term "strategic" came up again earlier this year, when Ontario's provincial government set up a committee to debate a proposed merger between London Stock Exchange Group PLC and TMX Group Inc., operator of Canada's flagship Toronto Stock Exchange. Canada Turns Wary Eye to Foreign Bids
- I have nothing to add to my earlier statement.
- The admission comes in the form of internal Bank documents prepared earlier in 1992 by its operations evaluation department.
- Though her color palette has brightened over the years and animal heads have shrunk a bit from cartoonish proportions of earlier years, her distinctive style soft paintings she calls "cutes" and her choice of subject NYT > Home Page
- In our own time such words as papoose, sachem, tepee, wigwam and wampum have begun to drop out of everyday use; 11 at an earlier period the language sloughed off ocelot, manitee, calumet, supawn, samp and quahaug, or began to degrade them to the estate of provincialisms. Chapter 2. The Beginnings of American. 2. Sources of Early Americanisms
- Three days earlier, four men snatched a cash box from a Post Office van while a delivery was being made at Marland.
