bright and early

English

WOTD – 1 January 2024

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)

1. (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^[1], 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

• Dutch: voor dag en dauw
• Finnish: aikaisin aamulla
• French: à l’aube, à l’heure du laitier (fr), au chant du coq, au petit matin, aux aurores (fr), de bon matin (fr), de bonne heure (fr), de grand matin (fr)
• German: in aller Frühe
• Greek: πρωί πρωί (proḯ proḯ)
• Japanese: 夙に (つとに, tsutoni)
• Macedonian: ра́но на́утро (ráno náutro), изу́трина (izútrina)
• Polish: białym świtem, bladym świtem
• Portuguese: cedinho (pt)
• Spanish: de mañana, tempranito
• Swedish: i ottan, i arla morgonstund, vara uppe med tuppen (sv) (literally “be up with the rooster”) (be up bright and early)
• Welsh: ben bore

See also

• get up early
• morning person
• small hours

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.