Spadework

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Work done by digging with a spade. uncountable

    "It is this help that the present book attempts to give, and the moment of its appearance, during a partial lull of excavation, is an opportune one. There is a chance to take breath and gather up the threads, with the possibility that the next month's spade-work will not put us out of date."

  2. 2
    dull or routine preliminary work preparing for an undertaking wordnet
  3. 3
    Work done in preparation for something else. figuratively, uncountable

    "There's a lot of spadework to be done before the scheme can be implemented."

Synonyms

All synonyms
preparrangementbasic trainingbriefingclearing the decksdigging

Example

More examples

"Thanks for doing the spadework."

Etymology

From spade + work.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.