Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Early \Ear"ly\, a. [Compar. {Earlier} ([~e]r"l[i^]*[~e]r);
   superl. {Earliest}.] [OE. earlich. [root]204. See {Early},
   adv.]
   1. In advance of the usual or appointed time; in good season;
      prior in time; among or near the first; -- opposed to
      {late}; as, the early bird; an early spring; early fruit.

            Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
                                                  --Burke.

            The doorsteps and threshold with the early grass
            springing up about them.              --Hawthorne.

   2. Coming in the first part of a period of time, or among the
      first of successive acts, events, etc.

            Seen in life's early morning sky.     --Keble.

            The forms of its earlier manhood.     --Longfellow.

            The earliest poem he composed was in his seventeenth
            summer.                               --J. C.
                                                  Shairp.

   {Early English} (Philol.) See the Note under {English}.

   {Early English architecture}, the first of the pointed or
      Gothic styles used in England, succeeding the Norman style
      in the 12th and 13th centuries.

   Syn: Forward; timely; not late; seasonable.