Example sentences
wǒ我yǐ已jīng经chī吃guò过le了。
I've already eaten.
tā他yǐ已jīng经zǒu走le了ma吗？
Has he already left?
About this word
已 is a classical word for already, and 经 means to go through or to experience, as it still does in 经历 and 经过. Together they say that something has been passed through, which is the ordinary Chinese way to place an event in the completed past. 已经 normally travels with 了 at the end of the clause: 他已经走了. The adverb carries the completion and 了 marks it, so learners who drop one of the two usually sound wrong. The word points backward only, so it never introduces a future event.
The story behind the character
已
已 and 巳 were one character in early writing, and they still differ by a single stroke: how far the top hook opens. The old shape is read as a fetus curled in the womb. 已 was borrowed for to stop, to cease, and from stopping came already, the sense that something is finished. 已经 is exactly that.
经
经 is 纟, silk, with 巠 for the sound. Xu Shen wrote 经, 织也, and its first meaning was the warp, the lengthwise threads stretched on a loom before any cloth is woven. Everything else crosses the warp, so 经 became the word for passing through, and for the texts everything else passes through. 经历, 经过, 已经.