一大早 (yī dà zǎo) — early morning; at dawn | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

early morningat dawn

Examples

一大早。
Tā měi tiān yī dà zǎo jiù qù gōng yuán pǎo bù.
He goes to the park for a run early every morning.
一大早，。
Wǒ men míng tiān yī dà zǎo chū fā, bù rán gǎn bú shàng huǒ chē.
We'll leave early tomorrow morning, otherwise we'll miss the train.
一大早。
Tā xí guàn yī dà zǎo qǐ chuáng kàn shū.
She is used to getting up early in the morning to read.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

大早early morning

大dàgreat早zǎomorning

偏正Modifier + head

The sense of 一 as whole combines with 大早 as early morning to point to dawn.

Characters in this word

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

一 is drawn as one horizontal stroke, marking the number one.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

日日rìsun

Sound part声符shēngfú

棗

棗zǎo早zǎo

Same sound today

The form 早 pairs 日 (sun) with 棗, which gives the sound; an earlier shape of 早 was a picture of an acorn.

Appears in

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