Always means every time, without exception. He always locks the door twice, the bus is always late, she has always hated flying.
It sits in the middle of the sentence: before the main verb, but after be and after an auxiliary — I always walk, she is always early, they have always known. Always also means for all time: I will always remember that week. Put it with a continuous verb and it turns into a complaint — he is always losing his keys — where always means annoyingly often rather than every single time. It is one word; all ways is something else entirely, and alway is old poetry.
1adverbalwaysEvery time, on every occasion.~92%
“She always takes the stairs.”
synonyms: invariably, without fail
2adverbforeverFor all time; forever.~6%
“I will always be grateful for that week.”
synonyms: forever
3adverbirritatesVery often, in a way that irritates.~2%
“He is always leaving his phone in the car.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: invariably
Old English said ealne weġ — 'all the way' — meaning all the while, without a break. It wore down to Middle English alwey, then took the -s that old adverbs liked, giving alweyes and finally always. The way inside it is the same way you walk down; the distance simply turned into time.
Middle English
alweyes
English, today
always
Built from
From Middle English alweyes. From Middle English alweyes, alwayes, alweys, a variant of Middle English alwey, alway (“always”), from Old English ealneġ, ealne weġ (“always, perpetually”) literally “all the way, all the while, continuously”, from ealne + weġ, equivalent to alway + s. Cognate with Scots always (“always”), Low German allerwegens (“very often”) literally “all ways'”. More at all, way.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA