Definition of "ready" []

• Prepared or available for service, action, or progress: I am ready to work. The soup will be ready in a minute. The pupils are ready to learn to read. (adjective)
• Mentally disposed; willing: He was ready to believe her. (adjective)
• Likely or about to do something: She is ready to retire. (adjective)
• Prompt in apprehending or reacting: a ready intelligence; a ready response. (adjective)
• Available: ready money. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "” In other words, having taken the king's ready money, he was thenceforth, during the king's pleasure, “ready” for the king's service."
• "At length, all being ready, I rap with a handsome paper _bâton_ on the leader's desk the five or six beats of the "_Make ready_.""
• "Those who are ready _fully to co-operate with us_ in supporting the freedom of speech and the press, the right of petition, &c, may be estimated at _double_, if not _treble_, the joint numbers of those who _already are members_, and those who are _ready to become members_."