at the ready

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

at the ready

1. (idiomatic) Ready; in a state of preparation or waiting; in position or anticipation.

   The soldiers held their rifles at the ready and listened for the enemy.

   The soldiers' rifles were at the ready.

   • 2022 October 5, Michael Paulson, “Suzan-Lori Parks Is on Broadway, Off Broadway and Everywhere Else”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Her apartment is filled with evidence of a furiously busy creative life: […] a laptop perched on a crate atop the dining table; lyric revisions in notebooks on a music stand by an ever-at-the-ready guitar.

Translations

ready; in a state of preparation or waiting; in position or anticipation

• Catalan: al peu del canó, a punt
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 已準備好的／已准备好的 (yǐ zhǔnbèi hǎo de)

• Danish: med (genstand/våben) parat (da)/klar (da)
• Finnish: valmiina
• French: en joue (fr)
• Galician: pronto (gl)
• Hungarian: készenlétben
• Polish: w gotowości
• Portuguese: aposto (pt), a postos, de prontidão
• Romanian: pregătit (ro), la îndemână
• Russian: нагото́ве (ru) (nagotóve)
• Spanish: a punto, al pie del cañón (es)
• Ukrainian: напогото́ві (napohotóvi)