turnkey

comparative more turnkey · superlative most turnkey

1. Ready to use without further assembly or test; supplied in a state that is ready to turn on and operate (typically refers to an assembly that is outsourced for manufacture).

   They wanted a turnkey solution for the entire system, but we could only provide the enclosure.

   2 more examples

   Third World countries no longer want to purchase nuclear projects on a turn-key basis; they want to receive advanced technical training as well.

   1980, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1980, Kathleen Bailey, When and why weapons; page 42

   He cautioned that the house “is not turnkey,” and that because it is “so unusual,” it may take a while to sell. But, he added, “It’s a joy to be selling a property with its history.”

   2023 March 22, Ben West, “This 835-Year-Old English Manor Needs Some Modern Love”, in The New York Times

plural turnkeys

1. A system that is supplied ready to switch on and operate.

   The hardware-software costs are packaged together. Turnkeys are either special purpose (e.g., only for one function such as libraries) or general purpose […]

   1982, Myron E. Weiner, Human Services Management: Analysis and Applications, page 298

2. datedA warder or jailer; a keeper of the keys in a prison.

   'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his statement.

   1883, Thomas Hardy, The Three Strangers

   3 more examples

   He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man / With but little expedition, / Which put him in mind of the long debate / On the Slave-trade abolition.

   1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 86

   […]they passed through an open door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with the key in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison.

   1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC

   "If you want to know who his gaolers are—the actual ones—Nat Lee and his daughter. But—there'll be somebody behind them. They're only turnkeys, as it were."

   1923, Joseph Smith Fletcher, The Lost Mr. Linthwaite, Grosset & Dunlap, pages 198-199

   Synonyms: dub-cove

present singular third person turnkeys · participle present turnkeying · participle past turnkeyed · past turnkeyed

1. transitiveTo supply a turnkey product; to supply something fully assembled and ready to use.

   We can sell you all the parts, or we can turnkey the entire unit.