Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character of being unready, in any sense.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being unready.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A lack of readiness, or state of being unready

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

unready +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • To shape a policy on the basis of unreadiness is not only to beg the main point, it is an indulgence in a dangerous fallacy of self-deception.

    International Aspects of American Race Relations 1962

  • Our military unreadiness is our moral vindication before the world.

    Democracy in War 1918

  • The habit of taunting foreign disputants, sneering at the cowardice or weakness of the one who shows any sign of reluctance in drawing the sword, and counting up the possible profit to its own country of one or other being well thrashed, in which it so frequently indulges, has inevitably the effect not only of goading the disputants into hostilities, but of connecting in the popular mind at home the idea of unreadiness or unwillingness to fight with baseness and meanness and material disadvantage.

    Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 Edwin Lawrence Godkin 1866

  • I call your attention to the bottom-right cell, showing the "unreadiness" (aka, no clue) category among the 55-plussers who make up a disproportionate amount of the voting public, and who were supposedly the reason for the congressional freakout that led to the DTV Delay Act. That's margin-of-error territory, folks.

    TV Barn 2009

  • I call your attention to the bottom-right cell, showing the "unreadiness" (aka, no clue) category among the 55-plussers who make up a disproportionate amount of the voting public, and who were supposedly the reason for the congressional freakout that led to the DTV Delay Act. That's margin-of-error territory, folks.

    TV Barn 2009

  • A lot of reasons have been bruited for Facebook's reluctance to go public, but let's just guess that the real one is Mark Zuckerberg's unreadiness for prime time.

    The SEC vs. Zuckerberg Jr. Holman W. Jenkins 2011

  • It is quite possible that we brought him up too soon and he's really not ready yet -- he showed some pretty clear flashes of unreadiness last year.

    Long toss: Should we be worried about Storen? 2011

  • Nasser did undertake land reform and other social programs like schools and clinics for the poor, but he spent the bulk of his energy constructing a bureaucratized security state, crushing out political parties, and assuring Washington that there were no other options in view of Egypt's social problems and unreadiness for democracy.

    Geoffrey Wawro: Nasser's Ghost: Time for Washington to Break the Stalemate in Egypt Geoffrey Wawro 2011

  • The lingering fear of unreadiness and weakness had disappeared.

    Runners Jack Canfield 2010

  • The lingering fear of unreadiness and weakness had disappeared.

    Runners Jack Canfield 2010

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