shovel-ready

adjective

shov·​el-ready ˈshə-vəl-ˌre-dē 

of a construction project or site

: ready for the start of work

Examples of shovel-ready in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Power becomes the bottleneck NVIDIA says the need for powered, shovel-ready sites is becoming critical as computing demand increases. — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 22 Aug. 2026

In California, where the financial details of housing projects are public records, the funding remains highly competitive, with more than half of shovel-ready applications being turned away because demand exceeds available funding. — Rob Davis, ProPublica, 21 Aug. 2026

Sam Wolfe | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Palmetto State is going all-in on shovel-ready sites. — Scott Cohn, CNBC, 9 July 2026

Advocates say the funds would help build more than 40,000 shovel-ready affordable homes that are unable to move forward because of a financing gap and help preserve thousands of other existing units. — Iris Kwok, Los Angeles Times, 6 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1995, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for shovel-ready

• already
• unsteady
• heady
• ready
• reddi
• steady
• teddy
• thready