early




at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time

"early morning"; "an early warning"; "early diagnosis"; "an early death"; "took early retirement"; "an early spring"; "early varieties of peas and tomatoes mature before most standard varieties"

Antonym:
  • middle
  • late

Nearest:
  • aboriginal; primal; primeval; primaeval; primordial
  • advance; beforehand
  • archean; archaean
  • archeozoic; archaeozoic
  • azoic
  • earlier; earliest
  • earlyish
  • premature; untimely
  • previous; premature
  • proterozoic
  • proto
  • wee


WordNet Lexical Database v3.0, © 2006 Princeton University