ready up v.
1. (Aus.) to manipulate events or a person so as to achieve an improper or illegal end, usu. a fraud or swindle.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Feb. 12/4: No; let your wives and sweethearts try / Peel’s breaks, or Attewell’s shoots; / Or, if they won’t, just ‘ready up’ / A team of bandicoots. [Ibid.] 23 May 6/1: They are ‘readying-up’ a blasphemy-prosecution against Thadeus O’Kane. | |
| Age (Melbourne) 25 Nov. 13/2: Mr. Purves: A statement has been made that is very serious. It has been said that a great deal has been ‘readied up’ for the jury by the present commissioners [...] His Honor: I do not know what ‘readying up’ means. Mr. Purves: It is a colonial expression, meaning that something is prepared with an object. If you ‘ready up’ a racehorse, you are preparing to lose, or if you ‘ready up’ a pack of cards, you prepare it for dealing certain suits. | |
| Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 127: READY-UP slang to suborn evidence [...] to plant goods to tempt a thief: to give opportunity for crime then detect the criminal, would be a ready up. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Sept. 26/4: So we readies up ther dolly an’ dish fer ’im, but, blarst me if ’e’d use ’m when ’e comes up. | |
 | Border Morn. Mail (Albury, NSW) 25 Sept. 2/5: [headline] Readying Up the War [...] A DIABOLICAL PLOT. | |
| ‘Introduction’ in Rose of Spadgers 9: I’ve readied up wild tales to tell me wife, / W’ich afterwards I’ve ’ad to take an’ eat. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | et al. DAUL 175/2: Ready up. To prepare, as a victim, for a swindle operation, a robbery, or pocket-picking. |
2. (Aus.) to find or hand over some money.
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
3. (Aus.) to hand on information, to ‘put someone in the picture’.
| Punch (Melbourne) 4 Dec. 19: [headline] [They] fully ready-up all the incidents with a view to the perfect safety of the Coming King. | |
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 238/1: ready up to – inform or give a tip. |
4. (US campus) to prepare oneself: wash, dress etc, to get ready to go out.
| Campus Sl. Apr. 7: ready up – get prepared to go out. |