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Readiness   Listen
noun
Readiness  n.  The state or quality of being ready; preparation; promptness; aptitude; willingness. "They received the word with all readiness of mind."
Synonyms: Facility; quickness; expedition; promptitude; promptness; aptitude; aptness; knack; skill; expertness; dexterity; ease; cheerfulness. See Facility.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Readiness" Quotes from Famous Books



... of four new laid eggs and two yolks, beat them together very well for an hour, then have in readiness a quarter of a pound of the best almonds blanched in cold water, beat them very small with rosewater to keep them from oiling, then have a pound of the best loaf sugar finely beaten, beat it in the eggs a while, then put in the almonds, and five or six spoonfuls of fine flour, so bake ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... up the remark with her usual readiness and sympathetic cordiality, and soon they were chattering again much ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... Orkneys, necessitated by the shift of front from the Channel to the North Sea. But against the technical skill, painstaking organization, and definitely aggressive purpose of Germany, even more radical measures were needed to put the tradition-ridden British navy in readiness for war. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... stump, scouts!" he ordered; and the boys immediately started to obey, holding their stout staves in readiness to resist an attack, if so be some unseen wild beast ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... the Boulevard du Montparnasse with Susie Boyd; and it was to meet her that Arthur had arranged to come to tea that afternoon. The young women waited for him in the studio. The kettle was boiling on the stove; cups and petits fours stood in readiness on a model stand. Susie looked forward to the meeting with interest. She had heard a good deal of the young man, and knew that the connexion between him and Margaret was not lacking in romance. For years Susie had led the monotonous life of a mistress in a school ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... Judith! Point!" The girl pointed toward the quarter where she saw the breakers, and the old mariner changed his course and saved his ship from wreck. On reaching port he told the story of his daughter's readiness, and other captains, when they passed the cape in later days, gave to it ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... himself with daydreams; and his uncle, Alan Stevenson, the builder of Skerryvore, yielded to the fascinations of the religious Muse. A volume of verse was the pledge of this dalliance. His mother, who gave him her gay indifference to discomfort and readiness for travel, also read to him, in his childhood, much good literature; for not till he was eight years of age was he an unreluctant reader—which is strange. The whole record of his life, from his eighteenth month, is a chronicle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... black hat bunched on his head as though the whole hand had grasped the crown and shoved the hat into place. It sat awkwardly to one side. And the hat typified the whole man. There was a sort of shifty readiness about him. His eyes flashed in the lamplight as they glanced at the bed, and then flicked back toward Terry. And a smile began somewhere in his face and instantly went out. It was plain that he had ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... station, where the road from Lillesand joins that from Christiansand to the north, the horses ordered by "forbud" were in readiness, and the party had only to pass from one set of carioles to another. The grim post-boys did smile faintly when they received their perquisites, and others, just as immovable, took their places for the next post. The road now lay along the banks of a considerable river, and the scenery ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... including the governor of the state.[43] The citizens above the age of sixteen were obliged to bear arms; they formed a national militia, which appointed its own officers, and was to hold itself at all times in readiness to march for the defence of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... for a little space, broken only by the soft cooing of a far-away dove. Then Betty looked up with a satisfied smile. The anxious pucker smoothed out of Lloyd's forehead, and Allison nodded her readiness. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... but prepared for a third exposure. When he did not press the bulb, but only held himself in readiness to do at a second's warning, Toby suddenly grasped what must undoubtedly be in the other's mind. Jack meant to try his best to secure a picture of the "shooting" of the oil well, if such a thing lay within the bounds of possibility! It was a splendid idea, and fairly staggered ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... Day (August 23rd), landed safely under the earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding number of men-at-arms. The next day the whole force, under the Earl, "who had all things in readiness" for such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to Waterford. Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting all ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had joined the townsmen to assist in the defence. Twice the besieged beat back the assailants, until Raymond ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... ended toward midnight, and I could see stars overhead and a clear horizon. Sleep, in my nervous, overwrought condition, was impossible; but the professor, after the bright idea of using the turpentine torch to dry out his plates, had gone to his fairly dry berth, after announcing his readiness to take snapshots about the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... principle of all the Sophists. Then, it may be suggested, there is nothing for it but to be silent. No, there is the cultivation of one's mind (the only thing of the existence of which we are sure), so as to give it ability, readiness, and strength. With what object? To become a dexterous thinker, which in itself is a fine thing; to be also a man of consideration, listened to in one's city, and ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... experience of the other. (3) But solitude for its own sake should surely never be preferred. We are bound by the strongest obligations to busy ourselves amid the world of men, if it be only to crack jokes. The finest trait in the character of St. Paul was his readiness to be damned for the salvation of anybody else. And surely we should all endure a little weariness to make one face look brighter or one hour go more pleasantly in this mixed world. (4) It is our business here to speak, for it is by the tongue that we multiply ourselves most ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... space, she began an exhortation, in language pure, beautiful, often eloquent, and occasionally rising to a noble sublimity; and then closed with prayer. If interrupted with a question, as she frequently was, by clergymen, medical gentlemen, and others, she answered it with readiness, and with a felicity of language surpassing belief. 'RACHAEL,' said a clergyman to her in our hearing one evening, while in the midst of her discourse, 'why do you engage in these exercises? and why——' She interrupted the speaker with words to this effect: 'I, even I, a worm ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... firing of a gun. A few seconds later, two feeble reports were heard, followed by an imprecation from Monsieur de Camier, whose caps flashed in the pan. The Baron, who had just leaned forward that he might see better through the thicket, raised his hand to warn Octave to hold himself in readiness. He then placed himself in position. An extreme indecision marked Gerfaut's attitude. After raising his gun, he dropped it to the ground with a despondent gesture, as if his resolution to fire had suddenly abandoned him; the pallor of death could not be more terrible ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... a bit of meat was cooking, and plainly intimated his desire to be allowed to turn the spit if they would give him the needful convenience. This being done by the handy Benjamin, he set to his task with the greatest readiness, and the boys quite forgot all their sorrowful thoughts in the entertainment of watching Fido turn ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... might have trouble in a short time, Captain," the veteran answered, "and you will hold your Liberty Boys in readiness to act at a ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore

... the Ambroses came to tea," said Nellie with a readiness beyond her years. "But she looks dreadfully, does ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... guest during this year, and at a time, too, when it was particularly inconvenient for her to have visitors. Her kindness also revealed itself in many minor ways. When she had to choose between her own pleasure and that of others, she was sure to decide in their favor. A proof of her readiness to sacrifice herself in small matters is contained in the following note, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... of Swedish society, as far as I could judge of it by this casual glimpse. From many of the guests I received cordial invitations to prolong my sojourn, and the next morning found two or three of the gentlemen in readiness to show me every thing of interest ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... an unmanly advantage to take of one who was so completely (as they imagined) in their power. They kept a watchful eye on him, however; and while they affected an easy indifference of attitude, held themselves in readiness to pounce upon him if he should attempt to escape. But nothing seemed farther from the mind of Keona than such an attempt. He appeared to be thoroughly exhausted by his recent struggle and loss ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... up the horses, and are holding them in readiness. Soon they are mounted, Heywood taking Jessie on his croup, Helen having a horse to herself—that late belonging to Bosley—while the latter is compelled to ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... and thought that he saw that he was unobserved. He had made up his mind as to what he would do, and he was determined to do it. He had in him none of that readiness which enables some men to make love and carry off their Dulcineas at a moment's notice, but he had that pluck which would have made himself disgraceful in his own eyes if he omitted to do that as to the doing of which he had made a solemn resolution. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... largest being fully a quarter of an inch in length. Apparently these spiders had been driven up from the low ground along the stream where it was wet, and had congregated along the borders of the dry ground in readiness to migrate. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... his feet, but not before she had realized his escape, and, with the savage instinct of a man-eater, had sprung to her feet and was making for him open-mouthed. It was Jacob's readiness and wonderful skill that saved him. The rope whistled through the air and caught her, the noose falling over her head with scarcely room between her nose and her victim's back for the rawhide to pass. In a flash the strands strung tight, and her head swung round with such a jolt that ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... many facts of a similar kind related in the lives of St. Patrick and his fellow-workers, to bear the imputation, not of imposition, but even of delusion. The desire of dying, to be united with Christ; the indifference, at least, as to the prolongation of existence; the readiness, if not the joy, with which the announcement of death was received, are of such frequent mention in those old legends, as matters of ordinary occurrence, surprising no one, that they must be conceded as facts often taking ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... moonrays from penetrating into the room. Placing the three gentlemen in convenient places should their assistance be needed, one of the men in uniform pushed aside the French window which he had previously unfastened to be in readiness. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... Department has vanished altogether from the world, and people are forgetting it now with the utmost readiness and generosity. Part of its substance and staff and spirit survive, more or less completely digested into the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... black women carrying most of the baggage on march, naturally so; the men want their hands free for hunting en route, or to be in readiness for enemies in a ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... this sweet-tempered and delightful woman, ranging over long intervals of time, was the only experience which remained in the memories of the persons about her. In bygone days, they had been amazed when her unexpected readiness and firmness of decision presented an exception to a general rule—just as they were ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... that causes one person to throw the book down in disgust will give greatest enjoyment to another. What is malice to one person is humorous to another. What people enjoy and appreciate depends primarily on their experience for the development of these feelings, depends upon the laws of association, readiness, exercise, and effect. To raise power of appreciation from low levels to high, from almost nothing to a controlling force, needs but the application of these laws. But no one of them can be neglected with impunity. It must be a gradual growth, beginning with tracks that are ready, because of the ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... not a teacher; he was a vital atmosphere and his lectures, as one considered them from an intellectual or emotional angle, were revelations or adventures. There never were such classes as his, we believed. Who could equal him in readiness of wit? Where was there such a raconteur? Who else could put the feel of a poem into one's heart? ... His voice was very deep, and exceedingly free and flexible. It always seemed to brim up as from a spirit overflowing. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... had set up a furious barking and snarling, leaping about in evident readiness to spring upon the horseman when he should get ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... February, at one o'clock, the guard and the officers of his household received orders to hold themselves in readiness to depart. Every thing was in motion: the grenadiers with joy resumed their arms, that so long had lain idle, and spontaneously swore, never to quit them but with life. The whole population of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... audience nodded assent. Their mullah taught them that the gods of the Hindu were devils. But who knew? Mecca was far away, and the jungle with its demons was very near them. Among the various creeds in India there is a wide tolerance and a readiness to believe that there may be something of truth in all the faiths that men profess. A Hindu will hang a wreath of marigolds on the tomb of a Mohammedan pir—a Mussulman saint—and recite a mantra, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... Marshall Sothern an hour before they made camp. Drennen sought and failed to hide the restlessness upon him. The next morning, a full hour before the customary time for making the start for the day, Drennen had thrown the half diamond hitch which bespoke readiness. They reached Lake Nopong before noon and all day fought their way northward along its shore. Before night came they had heard a rifle shot perhaps a mile further on. A rifle shot might mean anything. No doubt it merely told of a shot at a chance deer. But ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... undaunted parry altogether foiled Mr. Cruickshanks, who, though not quite satisfied either with the reserve of the master, or the extreme readiness of the man, was contented to lay a tax on the reckoning and horse-hire, that might compound for his ungratified curiosity. The circumstance of its being the fast-day was not forgotten in the charge, which, on the whole, did not, however, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... of obligation to the master, there mixes a less satisfactory reminiscence of youthful excess in imitative phrases, in unseasonably apostolic readiness towards exhortation and rebuke, in interest about the soul, a portion of which might more profitably have been converted into care for the head, is in most cases true. A hostile observer of bands of Carlylites at Oxford and elsewhere might have been justified in describing the imperative duty ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... for just then the young Manuel entered the room, in readiness to accompany his venerable protector and friend to the Vatican, and the old man's eyes rested upon him with a wistful, wondering trouble and anxiety which he could not conceal. Manuel smiled up at him—that rare and beautiful smile which ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... in readiness for the wedding when the last day of July brought Mrs. Chase to her daughter's arms again, and Dainty's ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... finest weather. Their grand drawback is inordinate expense; you may visit the whole seaboard of Morocco, and run to Tenerife and return for the sum spent in a week of Madeiran travel. The following tour to the north of the island was marked out for us by the late Mr. Bewick; his readiness to oblige, his extensive local knowledge, and his high scientific attainments caused his loss to be long felt in the Isle of Wood. 'You make on the first day Santa Anna, on the opposite coast, a six to eight hours' stage by horse or hammock, passing through ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... Hoopdriver, with splendid readiness. "My sister had gone to Bognor But I brought her back here. I've took a fancy to this place. And ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... not expostulate. She knew what her mother's objection meant. Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... and shut off the last fading light of day. Sir Nigel and his lady walked on in deep talk, while a fat under-steward took charge of the three comrades, and led them to the buttery, where beef, bread, and beer were kept ever in readiness for the wayfarer. After a hearty meal and a dip in the trough to wash the dust from them, they strolled forth into the bailey, where the bowman peered about through the darkness at wall and at keep, with the carping eyes of one who has seen something of sieges, and ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Parliament in my time—a half-white. He was a brilliant young fellow, and very popular. As an interpreter he would have been hard to match anywhere. He used to stand up in the Parliament and turn the English speeches into Hawaiian and the Hawaiian speeches into English with a readiness and a volubility that were astonishing. I asked after him, and was told that his prosperous career was cut short in a sudden and unexpected way, just as he was about to marry a beautiful half-caste girl. He discovered, by some nearly invisible sign about his skin, that the poison of leprosy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... but business was transacted with as much quietness as if the foe were hundreds of miles distant. Mr. Fox, the assistant Secretary of the Navy, had in a private note informed the President that if there should be a necessity for him to leave the city he would find a steamer in readiness at the wharf at the foot of Sixth Street. About one o'clock in the afternoon of each day of the skirmishing, the President would enter his carriage, and drive to the forts, in the suburbs, and watch the soldiers repulse the invaders." For several days Washington was in great danger of capture. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... say, I did miss My Lady, perched upon the stoic mule while like an Arab chief I convoyed her. The steady miles, I admitted, were going to be as disappointing as tepid water, when not aerated by her counsel and piquant allusions, by her sprightly readiness and the essential elements of her blue eyes, her facile lips, and that bright hair which ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... Lieutenant Bedloe has crossed the enemy's line, at Buckton's Ford, with a party of men. I wish you to ride to the Ford yourself, and remain there, with your horse in readiness and fresh. As soon as any survivor of the party returns, ride back with the first ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... because the Arabs have none of this class of superstitions, and should any Arab be near they give the child to him: it would bring ill-luck, misfortunes, "milando," or guilt, to the family. These superstitions may account for the readiness with which one tribe parted with their children to Speke's followers. Mohamad says that these children must have been taken in war, as ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... work of destruction, however, went on unchecked among the habitations of the settlers. It was not long before flames were mounting in every quarter. Butler, dismayed to see the Indians so completely beyond control, was forced to hold his regular troops in readiness to oppose a sally from the garrison. Brant meanwhile exerted himself in performing numerous acts of kindness, and did what he could to check the rude violence of his savage band. In one house he found a peasant woman working calmly ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... determined to accompany him. So they arranged to meet at Waterloo this morning, and to run down to Portsmouth by the eleven fifteen, which is a fast train, you know; and I have no doubt that they are at this moment engaged in getting the bearings of the Flying Fish, in readiness to descend to her as soon as the darkness has set in sufficiently to conceal their movements from too curious eyes. And if the staunch old craft is in the perfect condition that von Schalckenberg anticipates, we shall probably have them with us ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... affectionate readiness to serve her only so far as to beg him to take charge of her son Conrad. He did so willingly, and endeavoured to induce the young man to enter the priesthood. He wished to spare him the disappointments which had marred his own life, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and external, as well as to bring the people as a whole into fixed relations with foreign communities, there was laid the foundations of a swelling prosperity to which the several parts of the country jointly contributed. The effects of these changes were soon shown in a growing readiness on the part of other nations to enter into formal compacts with us. Of this, the treaty negotiated by John Jay with Great Britain, in 1794, is the most noteworthy instance; partly because it terminated one long series of bickerings with our most dangerous ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... must ask you to look first," said Raffles, smiling. "I should suggest, however, that you exercise the same caution in showing me that part of your quid pro quo which you have doubtless in readiness; the other part is in my pocket ready for you to sign; and after that, the three little papers ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... lions are sure to make for these groves?" Malchus asked his father as, with a bundle of javelins lying by his side, his bow in his hand, and a quiver of arrows hung from his belt in readiness, he took his place at the edge ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... arms were in readiness for instant use, he hastened on his way, threading the mazes of the wood with firm, quick, but ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... her manners, every look which fell from her eyes—every smile which wreathed her lips, denoted the chaste purity of her soul. With all her readiness to oblige—with all her anxiety to do her duty as she ought, she frequently incurred the anger of the irascible Nisida; but Flora supported those manifestations of wrath with the sweetest resignation, because the excellence of her disposition taught her to make every allowance for one so deeply ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... is the readiness with which the American newspaper tumbles to these frauds. The yellow press especially luxuriates in them; woodcuts the callow bedizened bride, the jaded game-worn groom; dilates upon the big money interchanged; ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... and picturesque before. The sound of the carriage dashing through it, called all the cottagers to their doors, where they stood bowing and courtesying. It soon reached the park-gates, which were thrown wide open in readiness for its entrance. As they passed the church, they heard its little bells ringing a merry peal to welcome their arrival. Its faint chimes went to their ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... hour the exodus of man and beast went noisily forward. But Colonel Mayhew's departure was delayed by his desire to see the Chumba contingent well under weigh before leaving: and by the time he announced his readiness to start, the last remaining units of the Great Camp were out of sight, trotting briskly along the shadowed road that winds up through ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... of Abraham cordially received into the house of Laban tells his story: proposes to take Rebekah: consent of her family: her readiness to go: the interview with Isaac: Rebekah becomes his wife: their anxieties: birth of Jacob and Esau: Isaac's death-bed, and Rebekah's unwarrantable proceedings: her solicitude respecting her ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... cared for him, worshiped him, the slightest inkling of what might have happened in the dim days of the long ago to transform him into a beaten thing, longing for the final surcease. And when the end came, it found him in readiness, waiting in the big armchair by the windows. Even now, a book lay on the frayed carpeting of the old room, where it had fallen from relaxing fingers. Robert Fairchild picked it up, and with a sigh restored it to the grim, fumed oak case. His days of petty sacrifices ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... Couillon, in the island of Hispaniola, over against the Ile de la Vache, was the place of muster, and thither the motley band gathered from all quarters. Provisions had been plundered from the mainland wherever they could be obtained, and by the 24th of October, 1670 (O. S.), everything was in readiness. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... talk to her, and she rarely argued. But he never felt that intellectually he had much hold upon her. Her mind seemed to him to be moving elusively in a sphere remote and characteristic, where he could seldom follow. Anima naturaliter Christiana; yet with a most stoic readiness to face the great uncertainties, the least flattering possibilities of existence: so she often appeared ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... any direct return, and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. These kindnesses from men I can, therefore, only return on their fellow-men; and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God by a readiness to help his other children ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... nearing the river, Morris rode by way of the herd to ask the deputies in charge to turn the cattle up the river towards his camp. Several of the foreman's men were waiting at my brother's wagon, and on Morris's return he ordered his outfit to meet the beeves the next morning and be in readiness to receive them back. Our foremen were lying around temporary headquarters, and as we were starting for our respective camps for the night, Lovell suggested that we hold our outfits all ready to move out with the herds on ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... alive by the waste of the system, and soon burns up its source. The first sex to suffer in this exhilarating and costly competition must be, as experience shows it is, the one that has the largest amount of force in readiness for immediate call; and this is the female sex. At the age of development, Nature mobilizes the forces of a girl's organization for the purpose of establishing a function that shall endure for a generation, and for constructing ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... frontier. In the provinces of Canada there were, in 1812, only four thousand five hundred regular troops, and of these hardly one-third were stationed above Montreal. The Canadian militia, however, rallied with extraordinary readiness to the call of the authorities. The majority of the loyal population that had come into the country had been engaged in military services, and even the old settlers, who were exempted from active duty, voluntarily came forward, and exercised, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... careful to mark the providential purpose just in this disguise. The Goddess threw a mist over things, that he might not know them, or make himself known till all was in readiness for the destruction of the Suitors, till she had told him what he had to do. Still it is his own act or state that he cannot at first hear the voice of ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... rejoined Wilkinson, and was introduced by him to several other midshipmen, who were all predisposed to like him, as Wilkinson had informed them of his little encounter with Condor, and of his readiness to fight the bully of the mess. This was considered, however, a sign of pluck rather than wisdom, and one of them expressed the general sentiment when he said, "You see he has been brought up among these Egyptian chaps, who have no idea whatever ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... the conversation. Edward took me into the next room, and asked me if I had any objection to the arrangement. As I saw by his face that he would be exceedingly annoyed if I did object, I expressed my perfect readiness to agree to it. He seemed altogether so much pleased and excited, that my self-tormenting disposition immediately suggested to me, that politics interested him more than anything else, and that no one day since our engagement had ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... which he found existing, and the collection necessarily contained odes illustrative of bad government as well as of good, of licentiousness as well as of a pure morality. Nothing has been such a stumbling-block in the way of the reception of Ku Hsi's interpretation of the pieces as the readiness with which he attributes a licentious meaning to many of those in the seventh Book of Part I. But the reason why the kings had the odes of the different states collected and presented to them was, 'that they might ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... coverings of sheets of birch bark and rolling them up placed them upon the star-chi-gan—the stage—along with other things which they intended leaving behind. The lodge poles were left standing in readiness for their return next summer, and it wasn't long before all their worldly goods—save their skin tepees and most of their traps, which had been left on their last winter's hunting grounds—were placed aboard their three canoes, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... Whether this opposition will weigh with us will depend on whether we regard the independent sovereign state as the be-all and end-all of political theory, or see that the fundamental fact to be taken into account is man's readiness to co-operate for common purposes. If we take the latter view, we shall still be holding to what was the fundamental contribution of the idealist school, the teaching that the basis of all political ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... weeks the sick man had been so accustomed to let himself be waited on that he accepted the shepherdess's good offices as a matter of course, and she never attempted to account to herself for her readiness to serve him. Stephanus would have suffered in dispensing with her, and to her, her visits to the well and her conversations with the old man had become a need, nay a necessity, for she still was ignorant whether Hermas was yet alive, or whether Phoebicius had killed him in consequence ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... as an adequate centre of authority does not mark the working-class, as was shown by their readiness the other day in Hyde Park to take upon themselves all the functions of [85] government. But this comes from the working-class being, as I have often said, still an embryo, of which no one can yet quite foresee the final development; and from its not having the ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... already reached Steens that the new Sheriff meant business, and was collecting a regiment at Plymouth to march westward as soon as he took up office; also that Mrs. Stephen had travelled down ahead of him and taken lodgings at a farmhouse on the near side of Truro in readiness to witness her triumph. Confident now that no danger threatened before the New Year, all but ten of the garrison—but these ten included the faithful (and unmarried) Trevarthen—had dispersed to their ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was lost. Philip de Montfort, a knight of renown, was despatched as ambassador to the sultan, and was led to cherish hopes of success. The sultan not only expressed his readiness to treat, but actually nominated commissioners. At first everything went smoothly, and the Saracens appeared reasonable in their demands. But when the question of hostages came to be discussed, a ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... raid in the dark hours; a dozen bombing machines have gone buzzing eastward to a certain railway station where the German troops waited in readiness to reinforce either A or B fronts. If you look long, you see the machines returning, a group of black specks in the morning sky. The Boches' scouts are up to attack—the raiders go serenely onward, leaving the exciting business of duel a l'outrance to the nippy fighting ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... I believe the readiness of our return volley had scattered the mutineers once more, for we were suffered without further molestation to get the poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade, and carried, groaning ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the military availability of these people. They have quite as much average comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage, (I doubt not,) as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill, counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager, active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... what I had in my head. That in the dead of night—the quiet time in the streets,—she should be carried in a hospital litter, softly and warmly covered over, from the Leicester Square lodging-house to rooms that I would have in perfect readiness for her. As I planned, so it was done. I let Clement know, by a note, of my design. I had all prepared at home, and we walked about my house as though shod with velvet, while the porter watched at the open door. At last, through the darkness, I saw the lanterns carried by my men, who ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... been written two or three days previously, and had been left at the office of the steamship company. It said, however, that the writer would hear of the arrival of the steamer, and would have everything in readiness to take them out to his place ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... Valencia, so that they in the town might see him, and he went round about the town, to the right and to the left, wheresoever he would. The King of Valencia with his knights was near the wall watching him, and Alvar Fanez and his company were in readiness lest the French should defy them. And after Abenalfange had staid their awhile he drew off and went his way to Tortosa. And Yahia was perplexed with Alvar Fanez, and sought for means to pay him, and he threw the two sons of Abdalla Azis into prison, and many other good men of the town also, and took ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... as showing the genius of true love. We notice the swift, cool-headed deftness of the man, his having at hand the appliances needed, the business-like way in which he goes about his kindness, his readiness to expend his wine and oil, his willingness to do the surgeon's work, his cheerful giving up of his 'own beast,' while he plodded along on foot, steadying the wounded man on his ass; his care for him at the inn; his generosity, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... line, we had been on the look-out for whales, and all the boats and gear were in readiness to be lowered, and to go in chase at a moment's notice. Everybody on board a whaler must be wide-awake, and prepared for all emergencies, or the ship may chance to return home with an empty hold. In no position in which a seaman can be placed is it so necessary to belong to the try ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... period, was a magnificent relief. By God, would he take advantage of it! Would he! There was a knock at the door, and the hotel valet hung a freshly pressed suit in the closet; the shoes into which he intended to change were in a perfection of readiness; laid out were a heavy blue silk shirt and a dull yellow tie. Lee got these various carefully selected articles of dress slowly, exactly, on. His pearl pin Fanny had given him! Well, it was a good pearl, selected personally by a celebrated dealer; and Lee was obliged to her, nothing more. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... fancy, as Patsy knew she would, to the little Dresden china shepherdess of a lady who would never grow older. Everything about her was irresistible—the soft grey ripple of hair about her brow, the shy girlish eyes, the long delicate hand with the fingers which, in spite of their declared readiness to work, trembled a little, and the voice which spoke the Northern speech with such clear-cut gentility, that the words fell on the ear with a certain cool freshness, like the splash of water in a fountain ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... soon as she heard them, whose footsteps were on the other side of the door, she held in readiness her Italian. She counted on understanding Giovanna's answer to her question, for she had, as she boasted, "quite a vocabulary." But much more than to this she trusted to the talent which Italians have for making their meaning clear ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... and Ludwig Alasua, two Eskimos, were engaged to hold themselves in readiness with their team of twelve dogs for a bright and early start for Hebron on the first clear morning. On the fourth morning after our arrival they announced that the weather was sufficiently clear for ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... humouredly beginning to express her perfect readiness for the play, if Henrietta and all the others liked it, when Mary eagerly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... few moments of quick work, the officers of the various masts indicated their readiness for the next order by saying, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... could be taken to pieces, and many carpenters and other workmen were engaged, at very high wages, to go with it to England to superintend the putting of it together. Four thousand men-at-arms and 2000 cross-bowmen were in readiness for the expedition, with horses, vessels laden with wine, salted provisions, and other necessaries. All these formidable preparations were rendered useless by the arrest of the Constable the day before his embarkation. We went to the Cemetery, which has its ossuary, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... who had been always so tender of heart had grown cruel; he would have flung corpse upon corpse into the water if by such holocaust he could have reached his purpose. What had drawn him to Nernia had been that flash of ferocity which he had seen in her; that readiness to go to the bitter end in the sweet right of vengeance; instincts which formed so singular a contrast to the childish gaiety and the sunny goodwill of her ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... as usual, sitting on the sand and trying to occupy their minds with sewing or reading, yet always with an eye to the road in readiness to rush to their red-headed combination of delivery boy and postman whenever he saw fit to put ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... his years of infancy, save that, as the letters TH are the most difficult of pronunciation, and the last which a child attains to the utterance of, so they were the first that came with any readiness from young master Wild. Nor must we omit the early indications which he gave of the sweetness of his temper; for though he was by no means to be terrified into compliance, yet might he, by a sugar-plum, be brought to your purpose; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... Everything was in readiness for the start, and Bob clambered up to the peep-hole that he might be sure the enemy were yet in their position, which was so favorable to the ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... the administration, he was sent by Lord Godolphin to Scotland, on an errand which, as he says, was far from being unfit for a sovereign to direct, or an honest man to perform. His knowledge of commerce and revenue, his powers of insinuation, and above all, his readiness of pen, were deemed of no small utility, in promoting the union of the two kingdoms; of which he wrote an able history, in 1709, with two dedications, one to the Queen, and another to the Duke of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... plainly. Aunt Jane had expected to be married to the dashing young man and had had her trousseau in readiness, when something happened. The folded paper would indicate that he was Charles Winfield, who had married some one else, but whether Aunt Jane had broken her engagement, or the possible Uncle Charles had simply ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... mere entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe that a knowledge of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... Valens protested that the heresies were none of his, and with his own lips pronounced the whole series of anathemas; and when Claudius of Picenum produced a few more rumours of heresy, 'which my lord and brother Valens has forgotten,' they were disavowed with equal readiness. The hearts of all men melted towards the old dissembler, and the bishops dispersed from Ariminum in the full belief that the council would take its place in history among the ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... main thing was to give Alexis the first chance and the best shot at the buffaloes, and when all was in readiness we dashed over a little knoll that had hidden us from view, and in a few minutes we were among them. Alexis at first preferred to use his pistol instead of a gun. He fired six shots from this weapon at buffaloes only twenty feet away from him, but as he shot wildly, not one of his bullets ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... half a pound of butter and a piece of bacon in your pan, brown it, and sprinkle in half a spoonful of flour. Cut two onions in; add pepper and salt, a bit of mace, and some herbs, then put in your meat, and fry it till it is brown on both sides. Have in readiness four quarts of boiling water, and a saucepan that will hold both water and what is in your frying-pan. Cover it close; set it over a slow fire and stew it down, till it is wasted to about five pints; then strain ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... mankind has become proverbial: in this his superiority is so great that he has justly been called the master of the human heart. A readiness to remark the mind's fainter and involuntary utterances, and the power to express with certainty the meaning of these signs, as determined by experience and reflection, constitute "the observer of men;" but tacitly to draw ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... quarters, if it came to that, but blank astonishment overwhelmed both. De Spain, standing slightly sidewise, his coat lapels flapped wide open, his arms akimbo, and his hands on his hips, faced the three in an attitude of readiness only. He had reckoned on the instant of indecision which at times, when coupled with apprehension, paralyzes the will of two men acting together. Under the circumstances either of the Morgans alone would have whipped a gun on de Spain at sight. Together, and knowing ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... Until one becomes an expert the hot water pan should be in constant use but later one need only use the hot water pan for keeping food warm. The burner should be carefully looked after and be in readiness. Alcohol, electricity and gas are all used as fuel, but denatured or wood alcohol is probably the most common of all. If care is taken in the use of alcohol there need be no danger. Fill the lamp with sufficient ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... replied in person. His crew was good for another tussle, he said, and his train was still in readiness. He would start west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him, and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... putting their ideas into practice. A friend of my husband finds his chief pleasure in imagining women hurt and ill-treated, but is too tender-hearted ever to inflict pain on them in reality, even when they are willing to submit to it. Perhaps a woman's readiness to submit to pain to please a man may sometimes be taken for pleasure in it. Even when women like the idea of pain, I fancy it is only because it implies subjection to the man, from association with the fact that physical pleasure must necessarily ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... measures which ought to be adopted in the event of its failure. The disposition of the troops on the North River was sounded, and found to be favourable; after which, a detachment of eleven hundred men was ordered to be in readiness to move on a moment's warning. On the first notice of the mutiny, the militia of Jersey took the field under General Dickenson, and measures were taken to call out those of New York should the occasion ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... a larger growth. A small boy forgets his promise to stay at home and tears madly down the street in the discordant wake of a band. The same boy, in later years, will follow his impulses with equal readiness, for he is taught conformity to outward laws, but ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... stay of three months the voyagers, having bade farewell to their friends on shore, prepared for sailing, when Tupia, accompanied by a boy as his servant, came on board, and expressed his readiness ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... 'tacit reference to future time' when applied to a given case. We associate these pains and pleasures with the causes; and in the important case our own actions are the causes. Thus the association produces the motive, and the readiness to obey the motive is, as Bentham says, the 'disposition.' Then, following Hartley, Mill explains the will. Bodily actions are muscular contractions, which are slowly co-ordinated by habit—association, of course, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... must take him with the lance, the lasso, or alive. No gun must be fired. They might still hear it, and would be on us before we could get round the mountain. No! sling your guns! Let those who have lances and lassoes get them in readiness." ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid



Words linked to "Readiness" :   unready, armed forces, qui vive, preparation, eagerness, ready, cognitive state, psychological science, psychology, set, zeal, forwardness, armed services, facility, war machine, state of mind, state, alert



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