bright and early
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English
Etymology
From bright (“in a bright manner: in good spirits; cheerfully, vivaciously”) + and + early.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌbɹaɪt‿n̩ ˈɜːli/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˌbɹaɪt‿n̩ ˈɜɹli/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)li
- Hyphenation: bright and ear‧ly
Adverb
bright and early (comparative more bright and early, superlative most bright and early)
- (idiomatic, originally US) (Very) early in the morning.
- Synonyms: at the break of dawn, at the crack of dawn, first thing
- 1919 May–June, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, chapter VI, in A Damsel in Distress, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 73:
- And this morning, bright and early, the beak parted him from ten quid.
- 2022 July 8, Mike Isaac, Kate Conger, “Twitter grapples with an Elon Musk problem”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-12-10:
- Bright and early on Monday, Elon Musk sent the government a surprising new document. In it, the world's wealthiest man laid out his possible intentions towards Twitter, in which he has amassed a 9.2 percent stake, underlining how drastically his position had changed from a week ago.
Usage notes
- Often used in the phrase to get up bright and early.
- The term often implies that the person who has woken up early is, or should be, alert and active at that time of day.
Related terms
- early bird
- early riser
- early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise
- the early bird catches the worm, the early bird gets the worm
Translations
(very) early in the morning
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See also
References
- ^ “bright and early, phrase” under “bright, adv.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
Further reading
- “bright and early, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “bright and early” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
- “bright and early” (US) / “bright and early” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
- “bright and early”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.