Amazing Chinese Characters (333) Already - 既

 The shell bone script of character Already is

The left is the food and utensil, the right is a person, facing back to the food, open his mouth to burp, which means that he has finished the meal, and is ready to leave. Actually, it is reversed character Owe (欠，Post 314), which is a person who is burping. 

Let's recall the character Upcoming - 即 (Post 332), which is a person who is facing the food and ready to eat. 

The bronze script of the character is

Here the person's body is facing the food, but the face is back to food. The explanation in 《Pictography Dictionary 》is that the person finished the meal, ready to leave. I think that he turns his head to burp, which means that he has already eaten a lot, or too much. He may be ready to leave, may be not.

The big seal script of the character is

Similar to the bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

It changes a lot. The left is the food and utensil. The right part is reserved character Owe (Post 314), a person burps facing back to the food. He is already full.  

The clerical script of the character is

The left is food and utensil same as that of character Upcoming (即, Post 332), but the right part is not reversed character Owe, I don't know why. But we could see that the top is like an open mouth, and the left-falling and right falling strokes are a person's legs, which is a person who burps facing back to the food.

The song typeface of the character is

既

Its pinyin is Ji4.

即 - Upcoming, or ready to; 既 - Already, or has done. They look like similar, easy to be confused. It is helpful for us to know their original pictographic meanings.