Ready Definition
- Available for immediate use:
soldiers with machine guns at the ready; students with notebooks at the ready.
- To make preparations.
- in a position or state of being prepared for immediate use
to hold a gun at the ready
- to prepare; get in order
- to dress
Idioms, Phrasal Verbs Related to Ready
Origin of Ready
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From Middle English redy, redi, rædiȝ, iredi, ȝerÇ£di, alteration (+"Ž -y) of earlier irÄ“d, irede, ȝerād (“ready, prepared"), from Old English rÇ£de, Ä¡erÇ£de (also Ä¡erȳde) ("prepared, prompt, ready, ready for riding (horse), mounted (on a horse), skilled, simple, easy"), from Proto-Germanic *garaidijaz (“ready"), from Proto-Indo-European *rÄ“idh-, *rÄ“i- (“to count, put in order, arrange, make comfortable") and also probably conflated with Proto-Indo-European *reidh- (“to ride") in the sense of "set to ride, able or fit to go, ready". Cognate with Scots readie, reddy (“ready, prepared"), West Frisian ree (“ready"), Dutch gereed (“ready"), German bereit (“ready"), Danish rede (“ready"), Swedish redo (“ready, fit, prepared"), Icelandic greiður (“easy, light"), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (garaiþs, “arranged, ordered").
From Wiktionary
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Middle English redy from Old English rǣde reidh- in Indo-European roots
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
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