Her day starts early (4)

I believe the answer is:

dawn

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'her' is the definition.

'day starts early' is the wordplay.
'day' becomes 'd' (abbreviation for day).
'starts early' becomes 'awn' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'd'+'awn'='DAWN'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for dawn that I've seen before include "Light in East" , "beginning" , "First light" , "Aurora, poetically" , "Cockcrow" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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