Definition of "already"
already
adverb
not comparable
Prior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously.
Quotations
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: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […]
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
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 are already familiar to experts in the field.
2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845