Definition of "already" []

• By this or a specified time: The children were already asleep when we got home. (adverb)
• So soon: Are you quitting already? (adverb)
• Informal Used as an intensive: Be quiet already. Enough already. (adverb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "That we already live in a partial fantasy world and base broad sweeping ideas based on lies is *already* causing a massive problem."
• "In view of the great scarcity of feathered game, and the number of deadly machine guns already on the market, the production of the last and deadliest automatic gun (by the Winchester Arms Company), _already in great demand_, is a crime against wild life, no less."
• "Incompetent he undoubtedly is, as we have already seen, to start with, and _if he were not so already_, he would certainly become so by reason of the trade or rather of the miscellaneous assortment of trades which are thrust upon him."