Earlier [adjective]

The reformers of the earlier period were not indifferent to the need for centralized organization in the banking system.

But a little earlier still, to be an Infidel was to be an outlaw, subject to the penalty of death.

The poverty of earlier days was the outcome of the insufficiency of human labor to meet the primal needs of human kind.

His lordship during the earlier part of his reign never came near Walls End Castle.

The explanation of his mysterious earlier moods offered itself with a clarity that was ghastly.

Ordinarily the diazo appears a little earlier than the Widal reaction—about the fourth or fifth day—but it may be delayed.

Each little family group had had its say and exchanged its domestic gossip earlier in the evening.

The result of the restoration of trade, banking, and credit to earlier and more normal conditions has been steadily apparent.

Lady Victoria's earlier mood of colossal indifference had been dissipated by her son's return.

It is not likely that any of the earlier fathers, any more than the later, would have invented so dangerous a story.