Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. UK Und.) cash in hand, usu. as the ready; thus adv. ready, in the form of cash (rather than credit or a cheque); see cite 1900.

[1627		G. Peele Merrie Conceited Jests 17: Nothing she would grant unto except ready coin, which was forty shillings, not a farthing less].
[c.1640		R. Brome Court Beggar I i: Cry mercy, you weare none in ready coine, / But all in Bullion lockt up].
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: Cheatly will help you to the ready.
1691		Catalogue of Jilts, cracks, prostitutes, night-walkers [...] and others of the linnen-lifting tribe 2: 12. Mrs Susan C—n [...] at her first coming into Companyshe appears a Saint, but produce the Ready, and she tacks about.
a.1704		T. Brown A Comical View of London and Westminster in Works (1760) I 151: What between the whore and his lawyer, eas’d of all his ready before he gets to bed.
1712		J. Arbuthnot Hist. of John Bull 16: He was not flush in ready, either to go to law or to clear old debts.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera III iv: There is a certain Man of Distinction, who in his Time hath nick’d me out of a great deal of the Ready.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 52: A Mistress, who deny’d him the last Favour, he not being provided with the Ready Rhino.
1732		Fielding Covent Garden Tragedy II i: Therefore, come down the ready, or I go.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 279: She has a well-furnished house, a brisk trade, and a good deal of the ready.
1765		N.Y. Mercury 27 May 3/3: Two valuable Negro Wenches [for sale]; for no other Reason than Want of the Ready.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 78: Have plenty of the ready, or else they won’t do for us.
1789		Both Sides of the Gutter part II 10: Huzza for Jack Prancer and de ready-rhino!
1797		‘T.B. Junr.’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II i: Tip us the ready.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 126: A Hibernian adventurer, rather hard run for the ready [...] called for a bill of fare.
1818		Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 8 June 3: He won’t have to lug out the ready for bringing up his voters.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 10: If you can flash the ready you may command every luxury on earth.
1824		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 24 Mar. 2/2: A lawyer will not plead or a cobbler mend shoes for nothing. And we will not puff for nothing. We have no doubt of the excellence of Mr. Ely’s system of Penmanship — but ‘A friend of the Arts’ must pay down ‘the ready,’ before we can insert his article upon the subject.
1833		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 7 n.p.: [He] was a little short of the ready .
1837		‘The Wide Awake Club’ in Bentley’s Misc. Feb. 210: Like many other swells, he was very often lodging in Queer-street for the want of the ready.
1840		R. Barham ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 49: While as for the ‘ready,’ I’m like a Church-mouse.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 4 Feb. 4/2: The Skipper a capital fellow — with lots of the ready — dinner parties on board every day.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 Sept. 2/6: The unfortunates who were unable to stump up the ready were afforded the seclusion of the cells.
1854		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 13 May n.p.: Does Wilder P—y have as much of the ‘ready’ as was his won’t [sic] when he kept in the grocery store?
1857		advert in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 45: Having some ready in his kick – [he] grabbed the chance – stepped home with the swag – and is now safely landed at his crib.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act III: Lark, lush, and a latch-key — a swell rig-out, and lots of ready in the pockets — a drag at Epsom and a champagne lunch on the hill!
1870		C.G. Leland ‘Steinli von Slang’ in Hans Breitmann in Church 139: Goot Lort!–How we’d froze to de ready! / Boot mit him ’dvas a different ding.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter II 28: ‘It’s devilish odd I can’t find a woman with any of the ready — just my luck’.
1884		Sporting Times 27 Sept. 3/1: Surely the want of ready, to which we are all so well accustomed, has not thrown both of them into this fury.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 17/2: The fact is Larry is blue mouldy for want of a beating, and made up his mind to meet Farnan on any terms, after all the talk there has been. ‘If he won’t or can’t find the ‘ready,’ I’ll fight him for love, and give him £50 to do it,’ said Larry.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 5 Aug. 1/1: Argentina is too hard up for the ‘ready’ to allow Jabez Spencer Balfour to be extradited.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 133: A job [...] that brought me a nice little lump of ready.
1900		‘Swears’ Chestnuts 35: I whispered to Shifter that we must cop the oof ready.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 57: Betting in ready and carrying bank-notes to the value of thousands.
1906		Sun (NY) 9 Sept. 1/3: With his white spats [he] looked like the ready to me.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 5 Jan. 9/5: And besides I ain’t the ready / For to hand to you to-night.
1914		Joyce ‘Two Gallants’ Dubliners (1956) 55: He might yet be able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good simple-minded girl with a little of the ready.
1919		Wodehouse ‘Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg’ in My Man Jeeves [ebook] ‘[H]e was pretty solidly in the soup, and had to think of some way of closing in on a bit of the ready’.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 5: Bingo [...] has always had a fair amount of the ready.
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 91: He turned over the papers, bills and receipts. There was nothing else. No ready.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 134: I like to see the ready coming in every week.
1953		A.J. Liebling Honest Rainmaker (1991) 132: Thought you might be wanting some of the ready.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 24: Not enough reddy in it in my case.
1963		‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’ Flat 4 King’s Cross (1966) 120: Sammy was a very sought after dress designer, and was never short of a little of the ‘ready.
1967		J. Orton Diaries (1986) 16 May 169: Get your smelly arse out of here and get yourself a bit of the ready.
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 182: Anyone else who might [...] insist on seeing ‘just what the heck kind of motion picture they were sinking their hard-ready into!’.
1982		P. Bailey Eng. Madam 80: She was short of the ready when the rent was due.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 81: [He] grins when ah produce the readies, tipplin that ah’m no here tae try n ponce.
2015		Section Boyz ‘Trapping Ain’t Dead’ 🎵 We on the streets for the ready / Buss squeeze for the Ps, don’t tempt me.

2. (Aus.) a swindle; a lie, thus work a ready, to practice a swindle [SE ready, to prepare, in this case the victim].

1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 127: ‘Working a ready’ is the process of carrying out a ready-up [i.e. swindle].
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 July 22/1: [cartoon caption] When Greek Meets Greek. / Ginger: ‘My old father owns a boshter pickle factory.’ / Sally: ‘Dat’s nothin’. Mine owns five.’ / Ginger: ‘Garn! That’s a ready!’ / Sally: ‘Well, I thort we wos tellin’ readies.’.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Sept. 26/4: Was it all merely a horrible blunder, or was the whole thing a ‘ready’?
1915		Drew & Evans Grafter (1922) 25: ‘If he were working a ready you would think that he would lose now and then so as not to draw attention to himself’.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 171: ready A swindle or dodgy activity [...] ANZ C20.

3. see ready rock under ready adj.