早
zǎo
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Early: before the usual or expected time. Like other adjectives it needs no verb 'to be': 现在还早 'it's still early'. Said on its own, 早！ is a quick 'morning!' greeting, and 早点儿 before a verb means 'a bit earlier': 早点儿睡 'go to bed early'.
Sớm: trước giờ thường lệ hoặc trước lúc đã định. Giống tiếng Việt, tính từ không cần “là”: 现在还早 (vẫn còn sớm). Đứng một mình, 早！ là câu chào buổi sáng ngắn gọn; 早点儿 trước động từ là “sớm hơn một chút”: 早点儿睡 (ngủ sớm đi).
AdjectiveRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “早” mean?
Early: before the usual or expected time. Like other adjectives it needs no verb 'to be': 现在还早 'it's still early'. Said on its own, 早！ is a quick 'morning!' greeting, and 早点儿 before a verb means 'a bit earlier': 早点儿睡 'go to bed early'.
Is “早” formal or informal?
早 is generally neutral.