goldbrick
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Something fraudulent or nonexistent offered for sale; a swindle or con.
Example Sentences
- "Experience is the biggest gold brick in the world. All older people have it for sale."
- "These, as a rule, were not adverse to buying a goldbrick as long as they knew that there was a chance for them to dump it on somebody else afterwards with some profit."
- "To-day, American attitude toward Europe is comparable to that of the country greenhorn who, having bought a goldbrick on Broadway, now fills the air not merely with the denunciation of the sharpers who tricked his credulity — […]"
- "The average farmer may be less of a victim than some other people by reason of his isolation, conservatism, and hard earned money, but he, too, has too often bought a goldbrick that did not materialize."
- "[…] that if he bought a goldbrick from Podhoretz for $25,000, he ought to pay me more than the $5,000 a volume that had been agreed on for the pure gold […]"
- "Mac, there’s not a confounded thing wrong with you. You are an excellent physical specimen and in good health. You’re nothing but a goldbrick. Now, get your butt out of here and don’t ever come back again unless you’re really sick or need an immunization."
Etymology
From gold + brick, originally (1850s) an actual gold ingot or brick, later a swindle that consisted of selling a putative gold brick, which was only coated in gold. The swindle is attested from 1879, the sense “to swindle” is attested 1902, and the sense “to shirk” is attested 1914, popularized as World War I armed forces slang. In early 1900s, used to refer to an unattractive young woman – not pretty, nor able to talk or dance (attested 1903), thence to refer to incompetent enlisted troops at the start of World War I, reinforced by the rank insignia of second lieutenants, which was a gold rectangle.