early

英['??l?] 美['?li]

反義詞late

比較級:?earlier;最高級:?earliest;名詞:?earliness;

early 早的

來自PIE*ayer, 早晨，詞源同ere, erstwhile. -ly, 形容詞后綴。

early: early: [OE] Broken down into its equivalent parts in modern English, early means ‘before-ly’. It was a compound formed from Old English ?r (ancestor of modern English ere ‘before’) and the adverb ending -ly, modelled probably on the parallel Old Norse form árligr. Ere itself was actually originally a comparative form, which before it was used for ‘before’ meant ‘earlier’.

Old English ?r came from prehistoric Germanic *airiz, the comparative form of *air ‘early’. Related forms in other Indo-European languages, such as Greek eri ‘in the morning’ and Avestan (the sacred form of Old Iranian) ayar? ‘day’, suggest that its underlying meaning is ‘early in the morning’.
=> ere
early (adv.): Old English ?rlice "early," from ?r "soon, ere" (see ere) + -lice, adverbial suffix (see -ly (2)). Compare Old Norse arliga "early." The adjective is Old English ?rlic. The early bird of the proverb is from 1670s. Related: Earlier; earliest.

1. Early American weathervanes were most often cut from flat wooden boards.: 美國早期的風向標大多截自平直的木板。

2. Ethiopia'sart springs from her early Christian as well as her Muslim heritage.: 埃塞俄比亞的藝術起源于其早期的基督教和伊斯蘭教文化遺產。

3. A Delta II rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral early this morning.: 今天一早，一枚“德爾塔”Ⅱ型火箭在卡納維拉爾角發射升空。

4. Two trains collided head-on in north-eastern Germany early this morning.: 今天早上德國東北部兩列火車迎面相撞。

5. If cancers are spotted early there'sa high chance of survival.: 如果癌癥在早期發現的話，存活的幾率會很高。