earlier
/ˈɝliɚ/ adjective A2- occurring previously · I shall be late because I missed the earlier train.· I'd seen earlier (in the day).
From the library
I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier still, for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.
Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.
If he only had spoken earlier!
I should have thought a little earlier.
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