Character Familiestop / bottom

早zǎo

early; morning (早晨); long ago; already (早已); early in time (早退, 早期)

早 is early — the sun over the mark, and the morning it brings.

GF0025–2021 character list · 一级

One character pageAll readings and linked senses stay together.

WHOLE GLYPH & STRUCTURE

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ZDIC: 会意, 从日、从十; the pieces are named without a fuller story in the extracted entry.

top / bottom · 早

WHOLE CHARACTER

early; morning (早晨); long ago; already (早已); early in time (早退, 早期)

早 is early — the sun over the mark, and the morning it brings.

ZDIC: 会意, 从日、从十; the pieces are named without a fuller story in the extracted entry.

MEANING: THE SUN

sun; day

日 gives a sun/day/time clue in combined characters.

In 早: meaning: the sun Shown with its documented or clearly limited role.

LOWER MARK

ten

Described structurally in 早; no invented story.

In 早: lower mark Named by ZDIC; no further narrative is claimed.

zǎoTone 3

Checking for a Mandarin voice…

ZDIC: 会意, 从日、从十; the pieces are named without a fuller story in the extracted entry.

晴 qíng — Shares a documented or visibly limited component with 早.

明 míng — Shares a documented or visibly limited component with 早.

晶 jīng — Shares a documented or visibly limited component with 早.

得 dé, děi, de — Shares a documented or visibly limited component with 早.

Sources & verification

ZDIC single character entry — matched zdic; fields: pinyin, primary_definition, structure_strokes. Body SHA256: 659df2852fa42662663b05ec48042634799bd4777d4e7e4e1968844d0348327b. Captured 2026-10-31T13:49:16.521Z.
商务印书馆 Xinhua Dictionary official material — reference only; fields: edition, publication background. No specific character entry was obtained; dictionary fields are not covered.