Already Meaning

/ɔːlˈɹɛdi/
A1

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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advPrior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously.

advSo soon.

It is already eleven.
He's already a man.
The children are already learning to multiply and divide.
CEFR Practice Quiz
We don't need to buy more milk because we ____ have two cartons at home.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have ____ seen that movie, but I wouldn't mind watching it again.

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).

"Tho, when-as all things ready were aright, / The Damzel was before the Altar ſet, / Being already dead with fearful fright." — 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
"slipping then my cloaths off, I crept under the bed-cloaths, where I found the young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh rather pleas'd than alarm'd me." — 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:
"It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant." — 1891 June 25, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Adventure I.—A Scandal in Bohemia.”, in Geo[rge] Newnes, editor, The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, volume II, London: George Newnes, Limited, […], published July 1891, →OCLC:
"Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick, already familiar to experts in the field." — 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
"Enough already with the lack of glamour!" — 1988 June 24, Liz Smith, Toledo Blade, Toledo, Ohio, page P-5:

Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words

CEFR Practice Quiz
We don't need to buy more milk because we ____ have two cartons at home.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I have ____ seen that movie, but I wouldn't mind watching it again.

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