"earlier" in the adjective sense
1. early
at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time
"a fashion popular in earlier times"
"his earlier work reflects the influence of his teacher"
"Verdi's earliest and most raucous opera"
"early morning"
"an early warning"
"early diagnosis"
"an early death"
"took early retirement"
"an early spring"
"early varieties of peas and tomatoes mature before most standard varieties"
2. early
being or occurring at an early stage of development
"in an early stage"
"early forms of life"
"early man"
"an early computer"
3. early, former, other
belonging to the distant past
"the early inhabitants of Europe"
"former generations"
"in other times"
4. early
very young
"at an early age"
5. early
of an early stage in the development of a language or literature
"the Early Hebrew alphabetical script is that used mainly from the 11th to the 6th centuries B.C."
"Early Modern English is represented in documents printed from 1476 to 1700"
6. early
expected in the near future
"look for an early end to the negotiations"
"earlier" in the adverb sense
1. earlier, before
earlier in time previously
"I had known her before"
"as I said before"
"he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"
"her parents had died four years earlier"
"I mentioned that problem earlier"
2. sooner, earlier
comparatives of `soon' or `early'
"Come a little sooner, if you can"
"came earlier than I expected"
3. in the first place, earlier, in the beginning, to begin with, originally
before now
"why didn't you tell me in the first place?"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
Princeton University "About WordNet®."
WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010.
View WordNet® License