From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe early hoursthe early hoursLATEthe time between midnight and morning I didn’t finally get to bed until the early hours.in the early hours of something The attack happened in the early hours of Sunday morning. → early
Examples from the Corpus
in the early hours of something• Despite vowing to die in defence of Evangalista, in the early hours of Oct. 6 Noble surrendered unconditionally.• Thirteen families were made homeless in the early hours of that morning.• They fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, holding hands.• Journalists rang her day and night, even in the early hours of the morning.• Something had scared him enough to make him go running across rooftops in the early hours of the morning.• He died in the early hours of this morning.• The tail-end of a conversation in the early hours of Tuesday morning.• A policewoman discovered the blaze which occurred in the early hours of yesterday. 