early

1. 1.

   during an early stage

   “early on in her career”

   Synonymsearly on
2. 2.

   before the usual time or the time expected

   “she graduated early”

   “the house was completed ahead of time”

   Synonymsahead of timetoo soon

   Antonymslate
3. 3.

   in good time

   “he awoke betimes that morning”

   Synonymsbetimes

Other forms of early

comparative or superlative

earlier

comparative or superlative

earliest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about early

What does early mean?

early means "at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in early?

early has 2 syllables: ear-ly. The stress falls on "ear". In IPA it is /ˈɝli/.

What is another word for early?

Close synonyms include former, other, early on, ahead of time, too soon. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of early?

The recorded antonyms are middle, late, late, middle.

Is early a common word?

early is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.