willing and able
- adjective
- We need volunteers who are both willing and able to help at the shelter.
- willing and able to pay
- willing and able to work
- willing and able to support
It's the buyers who are willing and able to pay, right.
- It's the buyers who are willing and able to pay, right.
- The vast majority of men would love a woman who, again, is willing and able and loves to cook.
- Banks are willing and able to take on more leverage and continue to keep the Ponzi going.
- So good at physical bits, but but also you have to have people who are willing and able to do it.
- And leadership, as Sachs points out, needs to and has to be willing and able to lead, which means being contrarian and being inspiring.
- A lot of folks who are willing and able to stand up and say, hey, there's another emperor here who's actually naked.
- I hope that don't sound bad, but you know that you're, you're willing and able.
Examples
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All the factors of production are ready, willing, and able to produce.
Academic text (1991) -
Let students and teachers know you are willing and able to assist, even if that aid requires leaving the library.
Academic text (2014) -
And if so, are we ready, willing and able to do it?
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Any man who is ready, willing, and able to work, I would like to have!
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But she is ready, willing, and able to change her approach to living.
Fiction book (2001) -
Yet they were willing and able to keep struggling.
Academic text (2010) -
I'm willing and able because I can.
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First, the representative must be willing and able to compromise in the name of some larger good.
Academic text (1997) -
Patients had to be suitable for oral therapy and willing and able to comply with the study protocol.
Academic text (2006) -
In the Bronx Lab School, teachers are hired on the basis of being willing and able to work closely with students.
Academic text (2008)
Synonyms
Prepared and willing to act or be used immediately
Completely prepared and willing to begin
Antonyms
How Ready
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase simply conjoins two ordinary adjectives whose meanings (readiness = 'willing' and capability = 'able') combine to give the overall sense, so a learner who knows the parts can infer the MWE. The structure is a transparent, compositional 'X and Y' pattern found across many languages and involves no idiomatic shift, making it readily understandable at B1.
Etymology
Willing and able comes from joining willing, meaning wanting to do something, and able, meaning having the skill or tools. Imagine someone who nods 'yes' and holds the right tools — they both want to help and can do the job, so the phrase means 'ready and able'.