ready
Verbreadies, readying, readied
Formsreadies, readying, readied
Pluralreadies
- 1Prepared and able to be used or to act without delay.
After months of training, the climbers were finally ready for the ascent.
Keep the lifeboats ready in case the alarm sounds.
UsageReady for a noun, ready to do something: ready for battle, ready to leave. Get ready means prepare.
Similarprepared, set, primed, equipped
Oppositeunprepared
Note
The core meaning, and the oldest: Old English rǣde, ġerǣde already meant "prepared" and "prompt," and could describe a horse ready for riding or a rider mounted on one. It also meant "skilled" and "easy," seeds of later senses. It also stands alone after be, as when Swift writes that dinner was ready.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The sense 'prepared' is the core historical meaning. upload.wikimedia.org
- Ready derives from Old English rǣde and ġerǣde, which meant prepared and prompt. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old English word could describe a horse prepared for riding or someone mounted. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old English word also had senses corresponding to skilled and easy. en.wiktionary.org
- Swift wrote that dinner was ready. gutenberg.org
- 2Inclined or likely to act in a particular way; apt to do something.
She is too ready to assume the worst about people.
Critics were ready to praise the novel long before reading it fully.
UsageOften too ready to or always ready to: too ready to assume the worst.
- 3To prepare something or someone, making it fit for action or use.
Engineers worked through the weekend to ready the rocket for launch.
The general readied his troops for the coming offensive.
UsageOften used with for: ready the ship for launch. In everyday talk, get something ready is more usual.
Note
It normally takes an object (ready the rocket, ready the troops). News writing also uses it without one: Melissa Gomez, Rachel Uranga and Brittny Mejia, reporting in 2025, wrote that a convoy "readied for a show of force." Here the subject prepares itself, much as prepare can stand alone.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Melissa Gomez, Rachel Uranga and Brittny Mejia jointly reported the cited example in 2025. en.wiktionary.org
- The convoy quotation is accurate and uses readied without an object. latimes.com
- 4Available at hand and easy to use at the very moment it is needed; convenient.
The shop kept a ready stock of batteries for last-minute buyers.
Travelers value a ready source of clean drinking water along the trail.
UsageUsually before a noun: a ready supply, ready cash, ready access.
Similaravailable, handy, accessible, convenient
Oppositeunavailable, inaccessible
Note
The superlative is where this meaning shows most clearly: the readiest way, the readiest weapon. In Dryden's Theodore and Honoria (1700), a sapling pine wrenched from the ground is "the readiest weapon that his fury found." It is not the best tool, only the one to hand. Milton's "not the readiest way" in Paradise Lost works the same way: the route nearest and easiest to take.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Dryden's Theodore and Honoria was first published in 1700, in Fables Ancient and Modern. en.wikisource.org
- The poem describes Theodore wrenching a young pine from the ground and calls it the readiest weapon that his fury found. en.wikisource.org
- John Milton's Paradise Lost contains the words not the readiest way, describing the Israelites' route towards Canaan. gutenberg.org
- 5Liable to happen or to act at any moment; on the verge of something.
The volcano had been rumbling for days and seemed ready to erupt.
His voice shook, and he looked ready to burst into tears.
UsageUses ready to + verb: ready to cry, ready to collapse. Context helps distinguish this meaning from being prepared.
Similarabout, poised, set, likely
Note
Here the word points at what is about to happen, not at what someone has prepared for: a seed ready to sprout, or a heart ready to crack, as Ford says in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. A seed cannot get itself ready; it can only be on the point.
Less common meanings
- 6Quick in action or perception; not slow or hesitating.
Her ready grasp of the figures impressed the whole committee.
The guide had a ready reply for even the strangest tourist question.
UsageIn this meaning, ready usually comes before a noun: a ready wit, a ready answer. After be, it usually means prepared.
Oppositeslow
- 7Already; beforehand or in advance of the moment in question.
The supper sat ready prepared on the table when the family came in.
We bought the pizza dough ready made, so dinner took only twenty minutes.
UsageGoes before a past participle: comes ready washed. Before a noun it is usually hyphenated: ready-made meals.
Similaralready
- 8Slang for cash; money immediately available to spend.
The seller only took readies, so we had to find a cash machine before the sale.
He insisted on being paid in readies so there would be no record of the job.
UsageUsually the ready or the readies: short of the ready, paid in readies.
Similarcash, money, dosh, dough
Note
Cash talk, clipped from "ready money": what you can spend now, not what you are owed or hold on paper. It has a long life in slang. John Arbuthnot's Lord Strutt in 1712 "was not flush in Ready," and Agnes Owens's narrator in "The Group," a chapter of Gentlemen of the West (1984), is "stuck for the ready."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The cash sense derives from ready money. en.wiktionary.org
- The slang sense has been used for centuries. en.wikisource.org
- John Arbuthnot wrote the work containing the quotation. en.wikisource.org
- The Arbuthnot quotation dates from 1712. en.wikisource.org
- The quoted wording occurs in Arbuthnot's text. en.wikisource.org
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English redy, an alteration of earlier irede, from Old English rǣde, ġerǣde ("prepared, prompt, ready, ready for riding"), from Proto-Germanic *garaidijaz, from a base *raidaz ("ready"). This traces to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to count, put in order, arrange" and was probably also conflated with a root *reydʰ- ("to ride") in the sense of "fit to go." It is related to Dutch gereed, German bereit, and Swedish redo, all meaning "ready."