earlier
ear·li·er/ˈɝliɚ/adjective, adverb
earlier is spelled E-A-R-L-I-E-R, 3 syllables: ear·li·er. The wrong spelling people search most is eariler: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 26 of all searches for the word. Earlier is an adjective meaning “occurring previously”.
How many letters and syllables are in earlier?
| Letters | 7: E-A-R-L-I-E-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ear·li·er |
| In writing | 95 times per million words; the 1,125th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 3; the most searched, eariler, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell earlier?
Earlier is spelled E-A-R-L-I-E-R. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for earlier in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is earlier?
Earlier appears 95 times per million words in written English, the 1,125th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce earlier?
- US /ˈɝliɚ/
- UK /ˈɜː.lɪə/
Earlier has 3 syllables, split ear·li·er in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-earlier.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What does earlier mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
comparative form of early: more early
- 2
occurring previously
I shall be late because I missed the earlier train.
adverb
- 1
comparative form of early: more early
- 2
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Earlier in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | vorherig , vorher |
| Portuguese | precedente, anterior , antes, mais cedo |
| French | plus tôt |
| Spanish | antes |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.