ready money

Noun

ready money (usually uncountable, plural ready moneys or ready monies)

1. (usually) Money held ready for payment, or actually paid, at the time of a transaction.
   • [A] yong Freſh-water ſoldier that neuer before followed theſe ſtrange warres, and yet hath a Charge newly giuen him (by the old fellow Soldado Vecchio his father, when Death had ſhotte him into the Graue) of ſome ten or twelve thouſand in ready money, beſides ſo many hundreds a yeare: […]1609, Thomas Dekker, “Lanthorne and Candle-light. Or, The Bell-man’s Second Nights-walke. […] The Second Edition, […]: Chapter 2”, in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Non-dramatic Works of...
   • It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her life commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by dress.1886 May, Thomas Hardy, chapter XIV, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC