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  1. shovel-ready love

Definitions

Wiktionary

  1. adj. US, Canada Ready for immediate commencement of excavation and construction.

Examples

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  • qroqqa "I mean, I'm set to go! I'm a shovel-ready girlfriend!"
    —Alex, Doonesbury Feb 23, 2009

  • reesetee C_b: Yes, it's supposed to have a meaning similar to "turnkey," as they used to use it when referring to nuclear power plants. Jan 20, 2009

  • sionnach Turkeys have nuclear power plants?
    The sky is falling!
    The sky is falling! Jan 19, 2009

  • rolig LOL, exactly. Jan 19, 2009

  • bilby Plug-and-pray? Jan 19, 2009

  • rolig A turnkey is an old word for jailer/gaoler! But what about plug-and-play, as in "plug-and-play nuclear power plants". Jan 19, 2009

  • chained_bear Is it at all like turnkey? Because people are still using that--turnkey nuclear power plants, for example.

    Unless I'm misremembering... Jan 19, 2009

  • bilby Worm-ready! Jan 19, 2009

  • reesetee Let's hope so. ;-) Jan 19, 2009

  • rolig I give this word maybe six months at most. Then it will itself be shovel-ready in Skipvia's sense of the word. Jan 19, 2009

  • reesetee "Governors and economic development agencies use the phrase all the time now. It has even been modified--a witness testifying at a House of Representatives hearing spoke of 'shovel-readiness' in October. Since Obama's 'Meet the Press' appearance, a string of governors, including Maryland's Martin O'Malley, have issued statements crowing about their shovel-ready projects.

    "Shovel-ready, in other words, has arrived."
    -- "The Obama Buzzword That Hit Pay Dirt," WashingtonPost.com, 1/8/09 Jan 19, 2009

  • bilby I did some gardening last weekend. My old tomato plants are shovel-ready. Dec 9, 2008

  • reesetee Ha! That's what I was thinking, skip. Dec 9, 2008

  • skipvia In a political context it could have completely different connotations: "That was a shovel-ready speech if I ever heard one," or "It looks like Ted Stevens is about shovel-ready." Dec 9, 2008

  • sionnach I guess you could refer to this as a kind of proactive debottlenecking. Dec 9, 2008

  • skipvia I heard this term (referring to construction projects that are ready to be implemented) for the first time today on NPR and was surprised to find it in fairly common use. There's even a shovelready.com. Dec 9, 2008

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‘shovel-ready’ has been looked up 1162 times, loved by 1 person, added to 4 lists, commented on 16 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.