The word 早晚 is formed by directly combining the character 早 (zǎo), meaning "early" or "morning", with 晚 (wǎn), meaning "late" or "evening". This juxtaposition of two opposing temporal concepts creates a compound word where the combined meaning extends to signify "sooner or later" through the implication of all times between these extremes, or literally "morning and evening" when referring to specific times of day.