at the ready

1. Available for immediate use, as in Umbrellas at the ready, we were prepared to brave the storm. This idiom was originally a military term in which the ready denoted the position of a firearm prepared to be raised and aimed or fired. [First half of 1800s]

Example Sentences

Hook it to your backpack or your belt loop and adventure worry-free with a beverage at the perfect temperature at the ready.

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Mrs. Clarke, I am sorry to interrupt your chess game, but could you summon Jasper and have him at the ready to run a letter to the post, posthaste?”

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Your apartment smells like dirty socks, Michael thought, and perhaps if he were bigger, stronger, older, he would have said all this, fists clenched, fight at the ready.

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These were used to promote yet more investment opportunities - slideshows and card machines at the ready.

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Khrushchev, as always, had a story at the ready, telling the crowd that Eisenhower and his U-2 pilot reminded him of a trespassing cat.

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Related Words

• accessible 
• apt 
• handy 
• qualified 
• ripe