already.
Prior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously.
Meaning & usage
Prior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously.
I was surprised that she hadn’t already told me the news.
Much of what he said I knew already.
So soon.
Are you quitting already?
An intensifier used to emphasize impatience or express exasperation.
I wish they'd finish already, so we can get going.
Enough already!
Indicates the completion of an action (whether past or hypothetical), or more generally, perfective aspect.
You frame the picture for me already anot?
Marks a change in state, more or less in the same manner as the inchoative aspect.
I don’t think he can take it already.
Your ice cream is melting already.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English alredy (“fully; already”), equivalent to al- (“all, completely”) + ready. Cognate with West Frisian alreeds (“already”), Dutch alreeds (“already”), Afrikaans alreeds (“already”), Middle Low German alreide, alreids ("already"; whence modern German Low German alreeds (“already”)), Danish allerede (“already”), Swedish allaredan (“already”), Norwegian Nynorsk allereie (“already”). More at all, ready. The use as an intensifier in American English is a semantic loan from Yiddish שוין (shoyn), attested from 1903. In Singapore English, the use of already as a marker of action completion and change of state is analogous to Hokkien 了 (liáu), Teochew 了 (liao²) and Mandarin 了 (le). Compare Malay (su)dah and Cantonese 咗 (zo²), 喇 (laa³).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.