Kilo Lingo

(zǎo) - early; good morning (greeting) in Mandarin

zǎo

Traditional: 早

Line drawing of 早
Coloured illustration of 早
HSK 1
#620 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

early; good morning (greeting)

Word origin

早 (zǎo) 'early, morning' depicts the sun 日 above 十, which in the oldest forms is thought to represent a sprouting plant or a head, giving the sense of the sun newly risen.

Origin
ideograph
Root
日 (rì, 'sun') above 十 (component representing a sprout or the early position of the sun)

Other proposed origins

  • The lower element 十 is variously explained as a germinating plant, a helmet, or the sun low on the horizon; the agreed sense is the sun in the morning. (日 (sun) + 十 (disputed lower element))

Stroke order

Stroke order for 早

早

Examples

！。

Morning! The weather is great today.

。

You came too early.

虫chóng。

The early bird catches the worm.

。

You came really early today.

。

Sleeping and rising early is good for the body.

早 (zǎo) means early as an adjective and adverb, and as a standalone greeting it functions as an informal good morning (similar to morning! in English). The antonym is 晚 (wǎn, late). Common compounds: 早上 (zǎo shàng, morning), 早饭 (zǎo fàn, breakfast), 早安 (zǎo ān, good morning - formal), 早起 (zǎo qǐ, to get up early). The Chinese proverb 早起的鸟儿有虫吃 is the equivalent of the early bird catches the worm.

Appears in 5 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 早.

早上zǎo shàngmorning (early)早就zǎo jiùlong ago, already by now早上好zǎo shàng hǎogood morning早餐zǎo cānbreakfast早安zǎo āngood morning

Used in

Stories

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This word is part of lesson 13.