as in challenging
requiring considerable physical or mental effort
she loves coming up with the "big idea" but hates the actual pick-and-shovel work of starting a new business
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Recent Examples of pick-and-shovel
Constellation Energy has surged 94% as a pick-and-shovel beneficiary of the AI boom.
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Lisa Kailai Han, CNBC, 31 Dec. 2024
Constellation Energy has surged 94% as a pick-and-shovel beneficiary of the AI boom.
—Lisa Kailai Han, CNBC, 31 Dec. 2024
The biggest beneficiaries here aren’t only the flashy tech giants but also the pick-and-shovel players: processor makers, cooling system vendors, and the unsung heroes of database architecture etc.
—Kjartan Rist, Forbes, 18 Dec. 2024
So far with Big Tech spending at an all-time high—fueled by a fear of being left behind—the pick-and-shovel approach has been paying dividends.
—Peter Andersen, Forbes, 2 Dec. 2024
The core operation and a smattering of pick-and-shovel prospects mined the surface gold that was easily extracted by hand from exposed late Cretaceous-period rocks that shed bits of precious minerals in flakes, nuggets and dust.
—Mare Czinar, The Arizona Republic, 26 Jan. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pick-and-shovel
Adjective
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In this one-man show, Whitfield steps onstage not just as a performer, but as a guide—challenging, inspiring, and activating the ABFF community to transform their pain into purpose.—
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The new bill, advocates said, is also expected to be particularly challenging for Native Americans who rely on tribal cards for identification ‒ which typically don't include place of birth, as the new law requires.—
Adjective
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Two of Elissa’s tumors were obliterated that day, but the third was too difficult to reach without repositioning Elissa’s body in a way that would have taken too much time under anesthesia.—
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Luca Solca sector head for global luxury goods at Bernstein Clouding the picture further, many other premium Swiss watchmakers including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, are privately owned, making their performance difficult to decipher.—
Adjective
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Being a careless jackass but also irresistibly charming is a tough needle to thread.—
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That’s really tough to stop from turning into scoring opportunities for the opponent.—
Adjective
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Hall, a former college football player, is quite the athlete and also gives fans a look into his rigorous workout regimen, which Khaled joined him for.—
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The Bee has a rigorous policy relating to requests for anonymity.—
Adjective
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Additionally, ensuring data accuracy and integrity within compliance features, especially for reporting and audit trails, can be technically demanding and prone to errors if not carefully managed.—
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That, plus more demanding processors, higher burst rates, and video modes, means mirrorless cameras get less battery life than DSLRs.—
Adjective
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Sandoval has received some pay bumps, including a temporary $10,000-a-year bonus for Hawaii special education teachers designed to alleviate shortages in that and other hard-to-staff areas.—
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Whether those numbers are an overstatement, or possibly an understatement, is hard to say.—
Adjective
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Tom and Rhyan make a formidable duo on the right side of the line and Jenkins will move to center after spending most of his career at left guard.—
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Selling a descent from stress into a state of devastation that can never be shed (only briefly reprised) is the formidable actress Parinaz Izadyar.—
Adjective
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The result is a mosaic of broods that makes the jigsaw puzzle of periodical cicada distribution more complicated, but more interesting.—
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My work centers Native characters who are fully human: messy, funny, complicated.—
Cite this Entry
“Pick-and-shovel.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pick-and-shovel. Accessed 29 May. 2025.
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