How to Use spadework in a Sentence

spadework

noun
Definition of spadeworknext
Synonyms for spadeworknext
  • She had her assistants do the spadework in preparation for the trial.
  • That spadework laid the groundwork for the current suit.
    — Robert T. Garrett, Dallas News, 3 Feb. 2021
  • Sekulow also got in some political spadework that offers clues as to the White House's legal strategy ahead.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 20 June 2017
  • Trump had already given a major concession by agreeing to meet Kim before any of the diplomatic spadework was accomplished.
    — Barbara Demick, latimes.com, 24 May 2018
  • Diplomats are appalled that Trump has done the whole thing backwards: Leaders usually meet at the end of a painstaking diplomatic process, coming together at the top of the mountain of spadework done by armies of anonymous bureaucrats.
    — Ryu Spaeth, The New Republic, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Donald Trump, the outsider’s outsider, would benefit immensely from his party’s spadework.
    — E.j. Dionne Jr., The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2016
  • The concern among the policy experts is that there has been so little of the kind of diplomatic spadework that has led to past breakthroughs on similarly complex issues – for instance, President Richard Nixon’s 1972 opening to China.
    — Ned Temko, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Apr. 2018
  • First, it was meant to build on Elizabeth Warren’s reputation as an academic who does the intellectual spadework.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 9 Dec. 2019
  • Seeking to determine what went wrong, the lawyers asked investigators to perform some additional spadework.
    — Michael Wines, New York Times, 31 May 2017
  • That triumph only occurred after years of diplomatic spadework, including a secret visit by Henry A. Kissinger to China a year earlier.
    — Eli Stokols, latimes.com, 9 June 2018
  • In recent decades, legal conservatives have reaped the rewards of the spadework done by this older generation of academic political philosophers.
    — Peter Hammond Schwartz, The New Republic, 3 Feb. 2021
  • Tillerson, meanwhile, is expected to spend far less time engaging in diplomatic spadework than his predecessors, who traditionally spend more than a week in New York meeting with foreign dignitaries in countless meetings.
    — chicagotribune.com, 29 July 2017
  • Democratic voters remain more politically engaged than Republican voters on several dimensions — including their willingness to do the spadework of an election campaign.
    — John Sides, Washington Post, 13 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'spadework.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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