既

Marks completion or the crossing of a threshold. Core senses include "to finish," "to complete," or "to exhaust."

• Adverbial: Indicates perfective aspect ("already").
• Conjunctional: When initiating a clause, functions as "since" or "now that," establishing a completed condition that triggers a subsequent state. The resulting "then" is often implied or marked by particles such as 則 (zé).

• vs. 已 (yǐ): While both can mean "already," 已 often implies cessation or stopping, whereas 既 focuses on the completion of a process or the fulfillment of a requirement.
• vs. 畢 (bì): 畢 suggests exhaustive or total completion; 既 is more temporal, denoting that the state of being finished has been reached regardless of whether the process was exhaustive.

Variant form: 旣. The explicit water radical reflects an original sense of pouring out until empty, reinforcing the concept of exhaustion or completion. These forms are generally interchangeable in a translational context.