Etymograph

English

already

Already comes from Middle English alredy ‘fully’, from al- ‘all, completely’ + redy ‘ready’.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500redy1‘ready’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500alredy2‘fully’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1596already2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Middle English alredy
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English already
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book VI, Canto IX: “Tho, when-as all things ready were aright, / The…”.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500redyWiktionary, Middle English alredy‘ready’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500alredyWiktionary, English already‘fully’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1596alreadyWiktionary, English already. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book VI, Canto IX: “Tho, when-as all things ready were aright, / The…”

The story

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).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Middle English redy

Today it means

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

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “already”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Middle English alredy. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Middle English redy / already

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