Definitions

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

  • adjective US, Canada Ready for immediate commencement of excavation and construction.

Etymologies

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Examples

Comments

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  • 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.

    December 9, 2008

  • I guess you could refer to this as a kind of proactive debottlenecking.

    December 9, 2008

  • 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."

    December 9, 2008

  • Ha! That's what I was thinking, skip.

    December 9, 2008

  • I did some gardening last weekend. My old tomato plants are shovel-ready.

    December 9, 2008

  • "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

    January 19, 2009

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

    January 19, 2009

  • Let's hope so. ;-)

    January 19, 2009

  • Worm-ready!

    January 19, 2009

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

    Unless I'm misremembering...

    January 19, 2009

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

    January 19, 2009

  • Plug-and-pray?

    January 19, 2009

  • LOL, exactly.

    January 19, 2009

  • Turkeys have nuclear power plants?

    The sky is falling!

    The sky is falling!

    January 19, 2009

  • 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.

    January 20, 2009

  • "I mean, I'm set to go! I'm a shovel-ready girlfriend!"

    —Alex, Doonesbury

    February 24, 2009