(sports) The command to makeready, regardless of language of competitors, used in multiple sports to get contestants to their marks in preparation to start.
Miranda: I'll admit it, Shepard. I'm impressed. You got us here. Are youready? Shepard: We're going in blind, and we don't even know if we'll survive the trip. No way in hell we'reready... but we don't have a choice.
(prepositive)first only usepredicatively, freely used from the end of the 17th century[from c. 1550's]
1565,Theodore Beza, The 7 poynt, of the clericall tonsure, in Robert Fyll, transl.,A briefe and piththie summe of the Christian faith,page149r:
First their must be a clericall tonſure whereas they clyp thꝛee oꝛ fowꝛe lyttle heaires in his crowne, and he muſt[…]be hold a Priestready made able to haue a benefice,[…]
1696,A Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, volumes9-11, page 8:
[…]and whoever can keep theirCorps till they can ſend toLondon, and have aready-made Coffin ſent down, may afterwards have them kept any reaſonable time.
[…]but, in the improvement of a place in which Nature has furnished few materials in which the groundwork of improvement is tame, and in which suitable diſtances cannot be had, the rules of ſcience and the "ready-made taste" of connoiſſeurs are of little avail to the artiſt.
Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was alwaysready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.
The[Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound,ready to hold the establishment to account.
Offering itself at once; at hand; opportune; convenient.
1667,John Milton, “Book X”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC, line1097:
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
2025 July 7, Melissa Gomez, Rachel Uranga and Brittny Mejia, “Heavily armed immigration agents descend on L.A.’s MacArthur Park”, inLos Angeles Times[1], archived fromthe original on8 July 2025:
Immigration agents in military green surrounded MacArthur Park as the convoyreadied for a show of force akin to a Hollywood movie.
1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym;John Arbuthnot], “A Copy of Bull and Frog’s Letter to Lord Strutt”, inLaw is a Bottomless-Pit.[…], London:[…]John Morphew,[…],→OCLC,page 8:
[H]e vvas not fluſh inReady, either to go to Lavv or clear old Debts, neither could he find good Bail:[…]
