as in ahead
so as to precede something in order of time
he had arrived earlier to take care of some preliminary matters
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for earlier
Adverb
-
That deal would potentially break a rule that no single broadcaster can reach more than 39 percent of American homes, so the FCC would have to lift the cap in order for the merger to go ahead.—
Amanda Castro
Shane Croucher
Anna Commander,
MSNBC Newsweek,
18 Sep. 2025 -
Go ahead and then play around and kick the tires on doing some vibe coding.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
18 Sep. 2025
Adverb
-
The Red Rocketeers were able to stop the Tigers from scoring early in the game by a fumble recovery by captain Nathan Rivera, and also secured a last-second interception by Frankie Strachan on a Hail Mary attempt by Tigers QB Dylan Keenan.—
Zachary McMahon,
Boston Herald,
20 Sep. 2025
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Forward David Vazquez, who scored in SDFC’s 4-2 exhibition win against the Tijuana Xolos on Tuesday, was left off coach Marco Mitrovic’s roster despite being among the 23 players invited to final training camp earlier this month in Spain and starting the final tune-up against Morocco.—
Mark Zeigler,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
20 Sep. 2025
Adverb
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The Hispanic population in the United States has grown rapidly in recent decades, and more Hispanic students are attending college than ever before.—
Melissa Cristina Márquez,
Forbes.com,
19 Sep. 2025
-
Russia is firing double the number of missile strikes from years before, with mounting civilian casualties.—
Oleksandra Matviichuk,
MSNBC Newsweek,
18 Sep. 2025
Adverb
-
With the deployment of models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT models, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, DeepSeek’s R and V series models, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI and countless others, the vast majority of AI processing across the industry is already inference processing.—
Jim McGregor,
Forbes.com,
19 Sep. 2025
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Miran has already uttered the unthinkable about dollar dominance and done the unthinkable by serving as an executive branch loyalist on the Fed board.—
Tiana Lowe Doescher,
The Washington Examiner,
19 Sep. 2025
Adverb
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The designer, who has been in the industry for about a decade, previously unveiled the 239-foot megayacht Day One, the 272-foot megayacht Dust, the 236-foot superyacht Posterity, and the 262-foot explorer Prelude.—
Rachel Cormack,
Robb Report,
19 Sep. 2025
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Under the new rules, children under 14 and adults over 79—who were previously eligible for waivers—will now generally be required to attend interviews, ending broad exemptions that had been in place in recent years.—
Alia Shoaib,
MSNBC Newsweek,
19 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Earlier.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/earlier. Accessed 21 Sep. 2025.
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