goldbrick
Plural: goldbricks
Noun
- a soldier who performs his duties without proper care or effort
- an idle worthless person
- a brick-shaped block that looks like gold but is not
- anything that is supposed to be valuable but turns out to be worthless
- Something fraudulent or nonexistent offered for sale; a swindle or con.
- A shirker or malingerer.
- A swindler.
Verb
- deprive of by deceit
- avoid (one's assigned duties)
- To shirk or malinger.
- To swindle.
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
bunco, con, defraud, diddle, fiddle, gip, good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, goof-off, gyp, hornswoggle, mulct, ne'er-do-well, no-account, nobble, rook, scam, shirk, short-change, shrink from, swindle, victimize, goldbricker
Scrabble Score: 19
goldbrick: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordgoldbrick: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
goldbrick: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary