turnkey
nounEtymology From turn + key. (jailer): Compare typologically Russian вертуха́й (vertuxáj) (akin to верте́ть (vertétʹ)).
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
Dated A warder or jailer; a keeper of the keys in a prison.
- 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:
1 more example
- 'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his statement.1883, Thomas Hardy, The Three Strangers:
- Derived terms
- underturnkey