Readily

How to spell readily

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce readily

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does readily mean?

1. adverbWillingly, promptly, or without difficulty.

Readily in a sentence

• The spare parts are readily available from any supplier.

• She readily agreed to cover the late shift.

Where does readily come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the adverb form of 'ready', which comes from the Old English geræde, meaning 'prepared' or 'arranged in advance', a word rooted in the same Germanic sense of putting things in order before they are needed. The adjective gathered the modern senses of 'willing' and 'easily available' over the medieval period, and the adverb 'readily' was formed in the 1300s simply by adding the ordinary -ly ending. The spelling trap lives entirely in that join: because 'ready' ends in -y after a consonant, the y flips to an i before the suffix, giving 'readi-' plus 'ly'. The same -y to -i shift explains 'happily', 'easily' and 'heavily', so remembering one helps with all of them. The root is closely tied to the verb 'arrange' through its Germanic family, which is why ready things are, quite literally, set in place.

How the word is built

• ready (from Old English ræde: prepared, set)
• -ly (adverb suffix); the -y of ready changes to -i- before -ly