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Glite Dictionary
🧱 A fake gold bar 😴 A lazy person 😴 To avoid work 🕵️ To cheat 💸 A worthless thing
goldbrick

goldbrick

1 9.9
A bar that looks like real gold but is fake
  • noun
  • /ˈɡoʊldˌbrɪk/
translation icon : lingote falso
  • The supposedly valuable goldbrick turned out to be worthless when it was examined closely.

Examples

  • He found a goldbrick in the old trunk.

  • He bought a goldbrick as a prop for his amateur film about bank robbers.

  • Collectors must be careful not to mistake a goldbrick for the real thing.

  • The goldbrick was just a clever imitation.

  • The museum displayed an impressive collection of goldbrick replicas next to the real gold bars.

  • He tried to sell me a goldbrick, claiming it was a valuable investment, but I recognized it was fake.

  • At the fair, the vendor was selling a goldbrick as a souvenir, but it was obviously not made of real gold.

Surface Forms

goldbrick singular
goldbricks plural

Morphology

goldbrick = gold + brick (transparent) = gold + brick

The compound is directly built from the nouns 'gold' and 'brick' and the literal meaning (a brick-like object resembling a gold bar) is directly inferable.

Etymology

The word goldbrick first meant a bar that looked like real gold but was not — literally a gold brick sold to trick people. That's why it now means a fake gold bar or other object that only looks valuable.