Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
turnkey . - verb Third-person singular simple present indicative form of
turnkey .
Etymologies
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Examples
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"Monsieur de Chanlay," said the governor, bowing, "I come to know if you have passed a good night, and are satisfied with the fare of the house and the conduct of the employés" -- thus M. de Launay, in his politeness, called the turnkeys and jailers.
Une fille du régent. English Alexandre Dumas p��re 1836
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He was quoted as saying, “schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent.”
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But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by gaolers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon.
Chapter 4 2010
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She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterise that class.
Chapter 21 2010
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But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by gaolers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon.
Chapter 21 2010
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She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterise that class.
Chapter 4 2010
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This is not fair on the staff who are called upon to act merely as turnkeys, processing people from overcrowded jail to overcrowded jail.
Another Form Of Relief « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008
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Remember too late you forgot to evacuate the turnkeys.
"There is no other way to describe it. He butchered her. He killed her in cold blood while she begged for her life." Ann Althouse 2009
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The sound of doors opening and shutting, the creaking of gratings on their hinges, a tumult in the guard-house, the hoarse shouts of the turnkeys, the shock of musket-butts on the pavement of the courts, reached his ears.
Les Miserables 2008
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We are not born to the treadmill, or to servitude and slavery, or to banishment; but the executioner has done no more for that criminal than nature may do tomorrow for the judge, and will certainly do, in her own good time, for judge and jury, counsel and witnesses, turnkeys, hangman, and all.
Miscellaneous Papers 2007
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