ready: prepared and in place, so that nothing more needs to be done before the moment arrives
At its core this word describes a settled state of preparedness. Whatever is "ready" has already been brought to the point where it can be used, entered, or acted on the instant it is needed. The word looks less at the work of getting ready and more at the finished condition that work produces.
That one idea shows up along two lines. It describes people who are prepared and waiting, standing in exactly the posture the moment will require: the servants watching for their master, the disciple prepared to face prison and death, the believer always ready to explain his hope. And it describes things and occasions that have been fully made ready: the wedding feast set out, the guest room furnished, a rescue prepared and only waiting to be unveiled. The two shades are the same condition seen from two sides, a person in readiness and the thing that has been readied.
Much of the word's force in the Gospels is that this readiness is a condition you settle in advance, not something you can improvise once the moment breaks. The parables press exactly this point: when the door opens, you are either already prepared or you are not.
It sits close to eagerness or willingness of heart (πρόθυμος), but the two are not the same: this word points to being actually prepared and in position, while the other points to a keen inner disposition that may still lack the means to follow through.