early bird

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See synonyms for early bird on Thesaurus.com

noun

a person who rises at an early hour.

a person who arrives before others, as for the purpose of gaining some advantage: The early birds got the best seats for the play.

(initial capital letters)Aerospace. the first of the Intelsat series of communications satellites, orbited (1965) by Intelsat.

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Origin of early bird

First recorded in 1885–90

Words nearby early bird

earl palatine, earlship, early, early adopter, Early American, early bird, early bird catches the worm, early blight, Early Christian, early closing, Early English

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use early bird in a sentence

It demonstrates how important sexual selection was in shaping the plumage of early birds, O’Connor says.
This 120-million-year-old bird may have been one of the first to shake its tail feathers|Kate Baggaley|September 17, 2021|Popular-Science
Together, these two factors—the speed of your master clock and how responsive it is to environmental signals—determine whether you’re an early bird or night owl, a distinction otherwise known as your chronotype.
Night owls can become early birds. Here’s how.|Isobel Whitcomb|September 13, 2021|Popular-Science
She’s a night owl and he’s an early bird, so Peter has a habit of bringing Betty breakfast in bed before he heads out for a morning walk.
They met in high school. Fifty years later, the pandemic helped them realize they belonged together.|Lisa Bonos|February 1, 2021|Washington Post
Many of the early bird fossils we've discovered so far come from older, early-Cretaceous rocks in China, with the timeframe between then and the end-Cretaceous extinction more of a question mark.
Cretaceous birds were thought to have small bills—except this one|Scott K. Johnson|November 29, 2020|Ars Technica

Within a few million years, however, Archaeopteryx and other early birds evolved.
Dinosaurs may have evolved into birds, but early flights didn’t go so well|Kate Baggaley|October 23, 2020|Popular-Science
When cities started adding chlorine to their water supplies, in the early 1900s, it set off public outcry.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
It’s cool because Trenchmouth opened for Green Day in the early ‘90s in Wisconsin.
Coffee Talk with Fred Armisen: On ‘Portlandia,’ Meeting Obama, and Taylor Swift’s Greatness|Marlow Stern|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
At first—it was the early stages of reporting—I was amused at having been so crassly underestimated.
I Tried to Warn You About Sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003|Vicky Ward|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Early on, the sexual protagonist complains that her Molson-drinking husband is pretty much an incompetent Neanderthal.
‘A Gronking to Remember’ Speed Read: 8 Naughtiest Bits|Emily Shire|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Detectives with a fugitive task force caught up with Polanco and a friend on a Bronx street in the early afternoon.
Shot Down During the NYPD Slowdown|Michael Daly|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Fourteen genera, representing about 19 species, of Mallophaga are reported for 20 different species of bird hosts.
Summer Birds From the Yucatan Peninsula|Erwin E. Klaas
The "new world" was really found in the wonder-years of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice|Stephen Leacock
When his lordship retired early, as was his custom, the other men adjourned once more to the billiard-room.
The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills
In the early stages of chronic nephritis, when diagnosis is difficult, it is usually normal.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
The grass had a delightful fragrance, like new-mown hay, and was neatly wound around the tunnel, like the inside of a bird's-nest.
Davy and The Goblin|Charles E. Carryl

British Dictionary definitions for early bird (1 of 2)

early bird

noun

informal a person who rises early or arrives in good time

British Dictionary definitions for early bird (2 of 2)

Early Bird

noun

one of a number of communications satellites, the first of which was launched in 1965 into a stationary orbit and provided telephone channels between Europe and the USSee also Intelsat

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012