Word.ws English Dictionary

earlier

Syllables: ear·li·erUK/ˈɜː.lɪə//ˈɝliɚ/

earlier adjective: occurring previously. Also the comparative form of early.

Adjective

earlier

  1. occurring previously
    • I shall be late because I missed the earlier train.
    • I'd seen earlier (in the day).

Adverb

earlier

  1. previously; before now; sooner
    • From what I vaguely saw earlier this morning, when I had just woken up and was tidying my bed, a tall, bulky person left an unfamiliar box at my front door.
    • I shall be late because I didn't start earlier.

Also used as

earlier is also the comparative form of early.

earlier meaning in Bengali, Telugu and Gujarati

earlier in Bengali

আগেকার কথা

earlier in Telugu

ఇంతకుముందు

earlier in Gujarati

અગાઉની, અગાઉના

Examples of earlier in a sentence

  • They were looking for some measuring equipment they had placed in the ice earlier.
  • Machine learning uses computer algorithms to teach machines to make independent decisions by learning from earlier or existing behavior.2019 February 3, “UN Study: China, US, Japan Lead World AI Development”, in Voice of America, archived from the original on 07 Feb 2019:

Words formed from earlier

Phrases with earlier

Questions about earlier

What does earlier mean?
Earlier means occurring previously.
What is earlier in Bengali?
Earlier in Bengali is আগেকার কথা. See Earlier meaning in Bengali.
How do you use earlier in a sentence?
They were looking for some measuring equipment they had placed in the ice earlier.
What part of speech is earlier?
Earlier can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce earlier?
Earlier is pronounced /ˈɝliɚ/ (US).

Words near earlier in the dictionary

  1. earlets
  2. Earley
  3. Earleys
  4. earlid
  5. earlids
  6. earlier
  7. Earlier Egyptian
  8. earlier on
  9. earlierness
  10. earlies
  11. earliest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earlier (page history and authors); earlier (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); earlier (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); earlier (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-earlier.ogg.

Cite this entry: “earlier.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/earlier. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.