"Always already" is a compound
adverb which has become a
shibboleth in
postmodern and
poststructuralist discourse. It sometimes occurs in an adjectival form, "always-already."
The phrase "always already" was first popularized by the philosopher Martin Heidegger (although it was certainly used on occasion previously), and was brought even greater heights of popularity by the seminal postructuralist thinker and Heidegger intellectual heir Jacques Derrida.
While Heidegger and Derrida used the phrase with great specificity to signify certain states of being which seem to take on a timeless quality once they have come into being, many of Derrida's would-be disciples have overused the phrase to a ridiculous extent, until it has at times become little more than a synonym for plain old "always" which is used to signify the author's insider status within a certain discursive community.