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Glite Dictionary
💧 Starting water flow 💸 Stimulating economy
pump priming

pump priming

6.7
Government spending to make the economy grow
  • noun
  • /pʌmp ˈpraɪmɪŋ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : inversión pública
  • No amount of government pump priming or printing money is going to suddenly make that fuel more affordable and bring back growth.

Examples

  • I would like to see NASA doing pump priming to create a space-faring economy, not another "space program."

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  • After the economic downturn, experts suggested that pump priming through infrastructure investment would boost growth.

  • The government implemented pump priming measures to stimulate the economy after the recession.

  • To encourage new businesses, the city allocated funds for pump priming initiatives aimed at increasing local employment.

Synonyms

deficit spending
vspump priming
  • Specialized
21 5.3

Government spends more money than it gets and borrows to pay the difference

focuses on injecting government money to encourage activity and growth
compensatory spending
vspump priming
  • Specialized
7.7

Spending the government borrows to help the economy during a slowdown

is used more generally to inject public money to encourage economic growth

Antonyms

austerity
  • Literature
97 7.4

Government policy of cutting public spending and services to reduce debt

How Stimulating

Porkulus plan
  • Slang
9.9
pump priming
  • Specialized
6.7
compensatory spending
  • Specialized
7.7

Surface Forms

pump priming singular
pump primings plural

Morphology

pump + priming

The phrase evokes the concrete image of priming a pump (injecting to start a flow), and the components 'pump' (inject) + 'priming' (preparing) reasonably suggest injecting resources to stimulate activity, so a learner who knows both words can infer the general idea. However, its specific economic sense — a technical policy of government spending/investment to stimulate the economy — is a metaphorical, jargon-like extension and not fully predictable without some prior exposure.

Etymology

Pump priming comes from the image of pouring water into a pump to prime it so the pump fills with water and begins to work. One popular image says a government 'primes' the economy by adding money in the same way, so pump priming now means 'putting government money into the economy to get it moving'.