Mostly literary or fixed-phrase. For 'morning' in everyday speech, use 早上 or 早晨; 朝 lives in compounds - 朝阳, 朝霞, 朝气 - and in chengyu like 朝三暮四.
mistakes
Same glyph as 朝 (court/towards). Rule of thumb: if the compound is about morning, sunrise or short timespans (one day, fleeting), read 朝; if it's about a dynasty, government, or facing a direction, read 朝.
Left 8-stroke stack - a picture of the sun (日) climbing through tall grass. This is the literal 'morning' half of the character; the zhāo reading preserves the original dawn sense.
