gold-brick

English

Noun

gold-brick (plural gold-bricks)

1. (usually attributive) Alternative form of goldbrick
   • 1811, H. W. Hammond, Style-book of business English, page 6:

     Pomposity of style is confined to sellers of spurious goods, whether gold-bricks, medicines, or scholarships.

   • 1906, Harry Houdini, The Right Way to Do Wrong, page 72:

     A species of swindle that has been perpetrated times without number all over this country is the old gold-brick game.

Verb

gold-brick (third-person singular simple present gold-bricks, present participle gold-bricking, simple past and past participle gold-bricked)

1. Alternative form of goldbrick
   • 1944, Minnesota PTA Bulletin - Volume 20, Issue 4:

     All of this costs money, but if we all determine to put our own shoulder to the wheel instead of seeing how we can gold-brick we can make Democracy work right here in our own state.

   • 1965, Samuel Feinberg, How Do You Manage?, page 36:

     ... great numbers of “happy employees who are extremely loyal to the organization because they can gold-brick, be apathetic, and be non-involved in worrying about the effectiveness of the company.”

   • 1966, Paul Goodman, Five years, page 197:

     No; any man is likely to be stronger than any institution—a GI can gold-brick the Pentagon.