Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A Soviet worker honored and rewarded for exceptional diligence in increasing production.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An extremely productive or hard-working worker, especially in the former USSR, who may earn special rewards; a workaholic.
  • adjective Pertaining to a Stakhanovite; heroically hard-working.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, (1906–1977), Soviet miner.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the name of Aleksei Grigor’evich Stakhanov (Алексе́й Григо́рьевич Стаха́нов), a Russian coal miner whose prodigious output was publicised by Stalin as part of a 1935 campaign.

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Examples

  • And yes I am a sad Stakhanovite. on February 21, 2008 at 12: 33 am | Reply Anonymous

    Cucumber Sandwich. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008

  • This is BoJo's second resignation of the moment: he's also chucked in the Chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board, presumably also because of lack of Stakhanovite spirit.

    Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister? 2010

  • If it got a speck of dust on its tape, the VHS cassette, that Stakhanovite worker, ploughed on, doggedly providing onscreen entertainment.

    Open door 2010

  • But after two decades, the time has come for a brilliant young historian — at home in many languages; capable of empathizing both with powerholders and with so-called ordinary people; a writer of distinction; tenured, but with few teaching obligations; well-funded for extensive research on several continents; Stakhanovite in work habits; monastic in private life — to start writing this necessary, almost impossible masterpiece: a kind of Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk of modern history.

    1989! Ash, Timothy Garton 2009

  • He might recall what the Stakhanovite myth (about the man who mined 14 times his quota of coal in six hours) actually did to the Soviet economy.

    Al Gore's Doomsday Clock 2008

  • He thinks that simply by declaring an emergency he can help achieve Stakhanovite results.

    Al Gore's Doomsday Clock 2008

  • James Purnell's clearly trying toset some Stakhanovite record for delivering soundbites today.

    Gordon Brown, Charlie Whelan and Me 2008

  • James Purnell's clearly trying toset some Stakhanovite record for delivering soundbites today.

    Is Brown the heir to Blair? 2008

  • A few months ago, there were many who were prepared to accept a man with a Stakhanovite work ethic and a deep voice.

    Dylan Jones on the Tories Valleys Mam 2008

  • Thanks to Wilson's meticulous, posthumously published diaries, in which he seems to have recorded his every sexual episode in harshly clinical detail (he appears at times to have bedded women solely for the purpose of recording the experiences), we already know far too much about his routine, which could be summarized as Stakhanovite reading, followed by concentrated writing, followed by boozy seduction, followed by kind of yucky sex.

    Elements of Style 2005

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