Is early an adjective

• Top Definitions
• Synonyms
• Quiz
• Related Content
• Examples
• British
• Idioms And Phrases

This shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

[ ur-lee ]

/ ˈɜr li /

Save This Word!

See synonyms for early on Thesaurus.com

This shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

adverb, ear·li·er, ear·li·est.

in or during the first part of a period of time, a course of action, a series of events, etc.: early in the year.

in the early part of the morning: to get up early.

before the usual or appointed time; ahead of time: They came early and found their hosts still dressing.

far back in time: The Greeks early learned to sail and navigate.

adjective, ear·li·er, ear·li·est.

occurring in the first part of a period of time, a course of action, a series of events, etc.: an early hour of the day.

occurring before the usual or appointed time: an early dinner.

belonging to a period far back in time: early French architecture.

occurring in the near future: I look forward to an early reply.

(of a fruit or vegetable) appearing or maturing before most others of its type: early apples.

noun, plural ear·lies.

a fruit or vegetable that appears before most others of its type.

OTHER WORDS FOR early

5 initial.

6 beforehand, premature.

See synonyms for early on Thesaurus.com

QUIZ

WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?

Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!

Question 1 of 7

Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift.

Idioms about early

early on, with but little time elapsed; early in the course of a process, project, etc. ; early in the game.

Origin of early

before 950; Middle English erlich (adj.), erliche (adv.), Old English ǣrlīc, ǣrlīce, mutated variant of ārlīc, ārlīce, equivalent to ār- early (positive of ǣrere) + līc(e) -ly

OTHER WORDS FROM early

Words nearby early

Earl Marshal, earlobe, earlock, earl palatine, earlship, early, early adopter, Early American, early bird, early bird catches the worm, early blight

Other definitions for early (2 of 2)

Early

[ ur-lee ]

/ ˈɜr li /

noun

Ju·bal Anderson [joo-buhl], /ˈdʒu bəl/, 1816–94, Confederate general in the U.S. Civil War.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Words related to early

fresh, initial, new, previous, recent, daybreak, first blush, first light, beforehand, briefly, directly, immediately, prematurely, promptly, quick, shortly, soon, unexpectedly, immediate, first

How to use early in a sentence

• Working two guided trips a summer could earn early guides enough to buy a few more cows and raise the quality of life of an entire extended family.

  It’s Time to Embrace Ski Guiding|Marc Peruzzi|February 26, 2021|Outside Online

• They pointed to an earlier message McCoy posted prior to his apology giving a different reason for deleting his post about obese people.

  FOX 5’s McCoy suspended over offensive Tweet|Lou Chibbaro Jr.|February 24, 2021|Washington Blade

• The earlier proposal called for a 25,599-square-foot building.

  Rehoboth theater supporters hopeful for approval of new buildings|Lou Chibbaro Jr.|February 23, 2021|Washington Blade

• To find the case assignments that went to ineligible attorneys, we compared the assignment date to the earliest date that an attorney appeared on a list in any court in the state.

  Lawyers Who Were Ineligible to Handle Serious Criminal Charges Were Given Thousands of These Cases Anyway|by Samantha Hogan, The Maine Monitor, and Agnel Philip, ProPublica|February 23, 2021|ProPublica

• In the earlier cold snap, the grid was pushed to the limit and rolling blackouts swept the state, spurring an angry Legislature to order a study of what went wrong.

  “Power Companies Get Exactly What They Want”: How Texas Repeatedly Failed to Protect Its Power Grid Against Extreme Weather|by Jeremy Schwartz, Kiah Collier and Vianna Davila|February 22, 2021|ProPublica

• When cities started adding chlorine to their water supplies, in the early 1900s, it set off public outcry.

  Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST

• It’s cool because Trenchmouth opened for Green Day in the early ‘90s in Wisconsin.

  Coffee Talk with Fred Armisen: On ‘Portlandia,’ Meeting Obama, and Taylor Swift’s Greatness|Marlow Stern|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• At first—it was the early stages of reporting—I was amused at having been so crassly underestimated.

  I Tried to Warn You About Sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003|Vicky Ward|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• Early on, the sexual protagonist complains that her Molson-drinking husband is pretty much an incompetent Neanderthal.

  ‘A Gronking to Remember’ Speed Read: 8 Naughtiest Bits|Emily Shire|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• Detectives with a fugitive task force caught up with Polanco and a friend on a Bronx street in the early afternoon.

  Shot Down During the NYPD Slowdown|Michael Daly|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• The "new world" was really found in the wonder-years of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

  The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice|Stephen Leacock

• When his lordship retired early, as was his custom, the other men adjourned once more to the billiard-room.

  The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills

• In the early stages of chronic nephritis, when diagnosis is difficult, it is usually normal.

  A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd

• He was in early life a shipcarpenter, and subsequently American consul at Antwerp.

  The Every Day Book of History and Chronology|Joel Munsell

• Hamo in alluding to the early cultivation of tobacco by the colony, says, that John Rolfe was the pioneer tobacco planter.

  Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce|E. R. Billings.

British Dictionary definitions for early

early

/ (ˈɜːlɪ) /

adjective -lier or -liest

before the expected or usual time

occurring in or characteristic of the first part of a period or sequence

occurring in or characteristic of a period far back in time

occurring in the near future

at the earliest not before the time or date mentioned

early days too soon to tell how things will turn out

adverb -lier

before the expected or usual time

near the first part of a period or sequenceI was talking to him earlier

Derived forms of early

Word Origin for early

Old English ǣrlīce, from ǣr ere + -līce -ly ²; related to Old Norse arliga

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with early

In addition to the idioms beginning with early

• early bird catches the worm
• early on
• early to bed, early to rise (makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise)

also see:

• bright and early

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Adjective

Meaning and grammatical features of the adjective.

Adjective is a part of speech that denotes a sign of an object and answers the questions what? which? which? whose?

Note. Under the attribute in grammar, it is customary to understand the properties, belonging, quantities, etc., characterizing objects.

According to the meaning and form, the categories of adjectives are distinguished: qualitative, relative and possessive. nine0006 Adjectives, depending on nouns, agree with them, i.e. are put in the same case, number, gender as the nouns to which they refer. The initial form of adjectives is the nominative case in the singular masculine. Adjectives come in full and short (only qualitative ones). In a sentence, adjectives in full form, as a rule, are agreed definitions, sometimes they are the nominal part of the compound predicate. Short form adjectives are used only as predicates. Qualitative adjectives have a comparative and a superlative degree. nine0007

Qualitative adjectives.

nine0005 Superlatives. Superlative degree shows that one or another object is superior to other objects in some way.

Relative adjectives.

Relative adjectives denote such a feature of an object that cannot be in the object to a greater or lesser extent. Relative adjectives do not have a short form, degrees of comparison, do not combine with the adverb very , do not have antonyms. Relative adjectives change by case, number and gender (singular). nine0007

Relative adjectives denote :

• material (wooden spoon, clay pot)
• number (five-year-old daughter, two-story house)
• location (river port, steppe wind)
• time (last year's plan, January frosts)
• appointment (washing machine, passenger train)
• weight, length, measure (meter stick, quarter plan)
• etc.

Possessive adjectives.

Possessive adjectives indicate that something belongs to a person and answer questions whose? whose? whose? whose? Possessive adjectives change by case, number and gender.

I. Part of speech. General value. II. Morphological characters: 1. Initial form (nominative singular masculine). nine0005 2. Constant signs: qualitative, relative or possessive. 3. Non-permanent attributes: 1) for quality ones: a) the degree of comparison, b) short and long form; 2) All adjectives: a) fall b) number c) genus. III. Syntactic role.

Other notes on the Russian language and literature

Morphology of the Russian language 1: nouns, adjectives, pronouns

The adjective is an inflected part of speech, which usually designates a sign (of an object, person, thing), and is also semantically and grammatically associated with a noun or pronoun, the meaning or characteristics of which specifies:

• HouseØ – new , large , wooden , spacious , beautiful , cozy , . .. blue nine0183, since the word room is feminine, adjectives get the endings -th / -ye , because the word sea is neuter, adjectives get the endings -th / -ee .

  Usually adjectives form phrases like agreement with nouns or pronouns, i.e. one word in such a phrase is the main one and determines the grammatical categories of the second word, therefore all grammatical categories of adjectives depend on the grammatical categories of nouns or pronouns. Adjectives can be defined grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular, plural) , case , as well as degree of comparison - a category that is typical for adjectives and adverbs (for more see 8 Degrees of comparison of adjectives) Degrees of comparison can only have adjectives that denote a non-permanent, changing feature, as well as a feature that can be measured, for example. large , thick , tall , dark , long ..

  The grammatical dependence of adjectives on nouns is complete (see examples above), which means that adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number and case, but in the plural gender differences are erased and only two endings are possible for all adjectives : new houses / rooms / sea , large houses / rooms / seas , blue houses / rooms / seas .

  In modern Russian, in addition to inflected adjectives, there are also non-inflected adjectives (or in other words, adjectives without a morphological characteristic), which include words like Bordeaux , Khaki , mostly about borrowed words).

  Examples from the Russian National Corpus:

  • In England's war with them, the color uniform khaki was first used. [Intellectual games "Z-S" // "Knowledge is power", 2003]
  • Sewn with a trapezoid, to the floor, with large sleeves raglan , he greatly enlarged the stage silhouette. [Sati Spivakova. Not everything (2002)]
  • But now he has an exceptional apartment, simply a general's, suite . [Yuri Trifonov. Exchange (1969)]

  Adjectives are most often formed using the suffix method ( ). New adjectives are also formed by adding ( railway , Russian-Czech , light brown ), a non-morphological compound of two words: undersigned persons = undersigned , above address = or so-called. adjectivation (transition of participles into adjectives), for example. outstanding successes , laughing eyes .

  From a syntactical point of view, adjectives usually perform the function of defining either the nominal part of the predicate. nine0007

  6.

  1 Lexico-grammatical groups (categories) of adjectives

  According to their meaning, adjectives in Russian are divided into three lexical and grammatical categories:

  • quality adjectives
  • relative adjectives ( iron , stone , rustic ),
  • possessive adjectives

  High -quality adjectives denote high -quality signs of the subject, face or thing : Form and position ( Direct , Student ), Dimensions ( Low - High , Big - - - - - - - - - - - 9018L nine0004 Due to the fact that qualitative adjectives denote a changing, non-permanent feature, these adjectives have degrees of comparison , for example. high - above ( over / less high ) - highest ( highest / above all , above all ). Other for degrees of comparison, see 8.

  Qualitative adjectives can have short form and long form, e.g. nine0187 sick - sick , young - young , smart - smart , other. for short and long forms, see 7.

  High -quality adjectives can form phrases with words Very , Very , much , is extremely , not at all , not and others: very large , is very smart, is very smart, is very smart. nine0188 , extremely interesting , is by no means stupid .

  Relative adjectives , in contrast to qualitative ones, designate a constant, unchanging attribute , therefore these adjectives do not have degrees of comparison. Relative adjectives designate a sign through the relation of a given object (person) to other objects, signs, states, for example. student residence (= "student residence"), reading room (= "reading room / where one can read"), morning newspaper (= "newspaper that came out / comes out in the morning").

  Most relative adjectives are formed from nouns, hence the meaning of relative adjectives - "the designation of a feature through the relationship of a given object (person) to other objects, features, states": -sk-), eye doctor , wooden table , silverware , plastic window .

  Relative adjectives can only have a full form, i.e. marine , eye , wooden etc.

  Relative adjectives include adjectives denoting materials, colors, etc.: glass , leather , blue , lilac , black , green .

  Possessive adjectives denote an individual or genus affiliation, an individual or genus characteristic, for example. Petin suit , fox hole , mother's bag . Usually these adjectives answer the question whose ? (cf .: qualitative and relative adjectives answer the question which one?) and have their own special indicators:

  - fathers , sisters , foxes .

  Russian surnames with Formant -ov -, -yin- / -yn- In their origin are the attractive adjectives ( Petrov Kozlov , Vdin , ).

  Forms ending in -ov- , -in- in Russian compete with genitive forms : father's shoes - father's shoes , mother's bag - mother's bag , Natasha's coat - Natasha's coat . In modern Russian, possessive constructions with the genitive case are used much more often than possessive adjective forms, i.e. father's shoes , mother's bag , Natasha's coat .

  Czech type combinations Gorkého ulice , Puškinův institut ruského jazyka , Masarykova univerzita are translated into Russian either using the possessive construction with the genitive case , or using a special construction with the word named after : Gorkogo street , Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language , Masaryk University Avšak Karlova univerzita = Charles University .. Constructions with the word named after are often written in abbreviated form: Pushkin , University. Masaryk .

  Examples from the Russian National Corpus:

  • But such glare all around, so non-fussy unrestored, homely, county Gogol street , so good that you can do it without coffee. [Tatyana Solomatina. My Odessa language (2011)]
  • Library named after May 1 was opened after reconstruction at Gagarin Square in Moscow. [Vyacheslav Surikov. Culture // Expert, 2015]

  The boundaries between the lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives are mobile , which means that as a result of semantic development or polysemy, adjectives can move from one lexical and grammatical category to another. Most often, relative adjectives go into the category of qualitative ones, for example. golden ring (= gold ring, relative adjective), golden hands (= skilled hands, figurative, qualitative adjective), heart of gold (= kind, quality adjective), golden words (= clever words, quality adjective).

  Next, we give an example from the textbook of the modern Russian language (Modern Russian language 2016, 60):

  attraction adj.	Rel. adj.	Quality adj.
  bear paw ( lair )	bear coat )

  Tasks

  1

  Form possessive adjectives from the following phrases.

  ---

  Learn more

  • 
    Rhyming words for preschoolers with pictures
  • 
    Level d kindergarten books
  • 
    How to create a sentence
  • 
    Testing lexile levels
  • 
    Teaching a 5 year old how to read
  • 
    Sleeping time story
  • 
    This is the song about colors
  • 
    Nursery short stories for kids
  • 
    Best math game
  • 
    What does reading proficiency mean
  • 
    Spelling games 1st grade