Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Work of little value assigned or taken on only to keep someone from being idle.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Active work of litle value, such as assignments given by teachers to students to keep them busy while the teacher performs other tasks, or chores performed to while away time; also called
busywork .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
activity ortask assigned or undertaken for the sake ofactivity orbusy-ness , rather than because of a particularneed .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun active work of little value
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The added revenue can be invested in new schools or health-care clinics in areas where education and medicine are scarce; it can subsidize short-term make-work projects to appease the angry unemployed or patronage networks that control dissent at the local level; it can finance the construction of better roads and bridges to open internal trade; it can bankroll the imposition of martial law.
The J Curve Ian Bremmer 2006
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The added revenue can be invested in new schools or health-care clinics in areas where education and medicine are scarce; it can subsidize short-term make-work projects to appease the angry unemployed or patronage networks that control dissent at the local level; it can finance the construction of better roads and bridges to open internal trade; it can bankroll the imposition of martial law.
The J Curve Ian Bremmer 2006
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The added revenue can be invested in new schools or health-care clinics in areas where education and medicine are scarce; it can subsidize short-term make-work projects to appease the angry unemployed or patronage networks that control dissent at the local level; it can finance the construction of better roads and bridges to open internal trade; it can bankroll the imposition of martial law.
The J Curve Ian Bremmer 2006
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The added revenue can be invested in new schools or health-care clinics in areas where education and medicine are scarce; it can subsidize short-term make-work projects to appease the angry unemployed or patronage networks that control dissent at the local level; it can finance the construction of better roads and bridges to open internal trade; it can bankroll the imposition of martial law.
The J Curve Ian Bremmer 2006
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Also anyone who thinks that pyramid-building, ditch-filling, make-work government "recovery" programs that stimulate aggregate demand actually create wealth.
What Was the New Deal?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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What is the difference between responsibility and make-work?
Abolish High School?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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The unemployed need jobs, real ones, not government make-work.
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If you think about it in terms of a two horse race, then Americans chose the relatively more rational candidate (i.e. the one whose policies pander less to anti-market bias, pessimistic bias, make-work bias, and anti-foreign bias).
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In the following decade, I hammered federal training and make-work programs in articles for this newspaper and other publications.
My Summer Road to Perdition James Bovard 2011
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All were given make-work to distract them from the purpose of the study.
The Week in Ideas 2010
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