How to Use already in a Sentence

already

adverb
  • I'd already left by the time you called.
  • Do you have to go already?
  • They've already agreed to come.
  • He acted as if he didn't already know.
  • Have they arrived already?! I'm still not dressed!
  • Our to-watch list is already a mile long…and about to get longer.
    — Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 30 Dec. 2022
  • Then again, that’s not far from where the News Feed is already.
    — Wired, 22 July 2022
  • If this is already a lot of stretch in your hips, stay here.
    — Cory Martin, Verywell Health, 28 July 2024
  • Some of the exiting brands have already been wiped from the site.
    — Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 10 Dec. 2023
  • Their view was, look, the FBI has the main suspect in the Tylenol murders already.
    — Chicago Tribune, 13 Oct. 2022
  • Next year's summer movie slate is already up in the air.
    — Abc News, ABC News, 2 Sep. 2023
  • Justin Hohn, who had already made four 3s, launched one with a hand in his face.
    — Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Dec. 2023
  • Chase Bradley and Nick Capone have three goals each already.
    — Andrew Mahoney, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Oct. 2022
  • The Fed has already raised its key overnight rate once, the first such increase since 2018.
    — CBS News, 29 Apr. 2022
  • What their eyes told them was that the Woodruff they are used to seeing was already back.
    — Curt Hogg, Journal Sentinel, 28 June 2022
  • The country has already been on high alert since the start of the war in Gaza last October.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 11 Aug. 2024
  • There was already good reason not to believe this at the time.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 22 July 2022
  • The cost of living in small, remote places already is high.
    — Dee-Ann Durbin and Sally Ho, Los Angeles Times, 2 Mar. 2025
  • Joy and Girard already briefly met Rogers' dad, Keith, on the farm early on in the process.
    — Hannah Kirby, Journal Sentinel, 13 Apr. 2024
  • And my back, it’s-a already starting to tingle, which means the cortisone’s-a wearing off.
    — Simon Rich, The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022
  • The migrants can stay for up to two years but must have a sponsor already in place in the United States.
    — Andrea Rodríguez, Chicago Tribune, 5 Feb. 2023
  • Six other states have already banned the practice, and forced prison labor isn’t a thing in the EU.
    — Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 16 Sep. 2024
  • So, our already busy judge now has even more to read and more decisions to make.
    — Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson, The Conversation, 1 Feb. 2024
  • At that point most of the railroads already had been unionized, some all the way back to the mid-19th century.
    — Chris Isidore, CNN, 2 Dec. 2022
  • Most have had the spring to adjust to their new team and made an impression already.
    — Alexis Cubit, The Courier-Journal, 1 Aug. 2022
  • But the tragedy of The Lancet report is that the numbers were already high before the pandemic.
    — Eliza Anyangwe, CNN, 17 Feb. 2022
  • Rake up and dispose of this year’s leaves, even those already fallen.
    — Nan Sterman, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Nov. 2023
  • Things that have already stood the test of time often have another 50 years left in them!
    — Kim Cook, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Apr. 2024
  • The Houston Rockets have been very busy already this offseason.
    — Evan Massey, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 June 2025
  • The film has already generated significant buzz with its teaser and hit songs.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 30 June 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'already.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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