Editing goldbrick

==English==

===Alternative forms===
* {{alter|en|gold-brick|gold brick}}

===Etymology===
From {{compound|en|gold|brick}}, originally (1850s) an actual gold ingot or brick,<ref name="World Wide Words">{{R:World Wide Words|entry=Goldbricking|url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gol2.htm|date_created=10 September 2005}}</ref> later a [[swindle]] that consisted of selling a putative gold brick, which was only coated in gold. The swindle is attested from 1879,<ref name="World Wide Words" /> the sense “to swindle” is attested 1902, and the sense “to shirk” is attested 1914, popularized as World War I armed forces slang.<ref>{{R:Online Etymology Dictionary}}</ref> 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.<ref name="World Wide Words" />

===Noun===
{{en-noun}}

# Something [[fraudulent]] or [[nonexistent]] offered for sale; a [[swindle]] or [[con]].
#* '''1920''', {{w|F. Scott Fitzgerald}}, ''{{w|The Smart Set}},'' January 1920, collected in ''{{w|Tales of the Jazz Age}}:''
#*: Experience is the biggest '''gold brick''' in the world. All older people have it for sale.
#* {{quote-book|en|year=1932|author=[[w:Rafael de Nogales Méndez|Rafael De Nogales]]|title=Memoirs Of A Soldier Of Fortune|pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=LDdqe6oWaeAC&pg=PA98&dq=goldbrick|page=98|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|year_published=2006|isbn=9781428658349
|passage=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.}}
#* {{quote-text|en|year=1932|title=w:Harper's Magazine|volume=166|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=EvkvAAAAMAAJ|page=520
|passage=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 — {{...}}}}
#* '''1945''', in the [[w:Virginia|Virginia]] Department of Agriculture and Immigration ''Bulletin'', Volumes 422–433,<sup >[http://books.google.com/books?id=WfIRAAAAYAAJ ]</sup> page 5:
#*: 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.
#* {{circa|1967}} [[w:Edmund Wilson|Edmund Wilson]], quoted in Lewis M. Dabney, ''Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature'',<sup >[http://books.google.com/books?id=FgucGWGxOIoC ][http://www.amazon.com/Edmund-Wilson-Literature-Lewis-Dabney/dp/0374113122 ]</sup> Macmillan (2005), {{ISBN|9780374113124}}, page 485:
#*: {{...}} 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 {{...}}
# {{lb|en|US|slang|dated}} A [[shirker]] or [[malingerer]].
#* '''1945''', Dr. Charley Haly, quoted in ''Doc: heroic stories of medics, corpsmen, and surgeons in combat'' by Mark R. Littleton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=uvR1CwPcyOIC&pg=PA68&dq=goldbrick p. 68]
#*: 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.
#* '''2004''' (written {{circa2|1990|short=yes}}), {{w|Howard Ashman}}, ''[[w:Aladdin (soundtrack)|Aladdin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]],'' “Proud of your Boy”:
#*: Tell me that I’ve been a louse and loafer
#*: You won’t get a fight here, no ma’am
#*: Say I’m a '''goldbrick''', a good-off, no good
#*: But that couldn’t be all that I am
# {{lb|en|US|slang|dated}} A [[swindler]].

===Verb===
{{en-verb}}

# {{lb|en|US|slang|dated}} To [[shirk]] or [[malinger]].
#* {{RQ:Heller Catch-22|The Soldier in White|173|I'd just as soon '''goldbrick''' with malaria as with anything else.}}
#* {{quote-book|en|title=Lipstick Traces|chapter=The Assault on Notre-Dame|author=w:Greil Marcus|year_published=2009|year=1989|publisher=Faber & Faber|passage=He learned to despise the Germans, people he once thought fit to rule the world, but now so craven they ate French dirt for a glass of cheap campagne; he mastered the art of '''goldbricking'''. Sitting at his desk, bored and full of hate, he got fat and dreamed of Paris.}}
# {{lb|en|US|slang|dated}} To [[swindle]].

====Derived terms====
* {{l|en|goldbricker}}

====Descendants====
* {{desc|ryu|ゴーブレーキ|tr=goobureeki|bor=1}}

===References===
<references/>

{{C|en|People}}