| 释义 |
gold brick, gold-brick, n.
[f. gold1 + brick n.1 4.]
1. A brick-shaped piece of gold.
1853San Francisco Sun 7 June 2/2 (heading) Gold brick. 1877R. W. Raymond Statistics of Mining VIII. 354 Individuals are constantly carrying out bags of gold and gold bricks and some silver bricks. 1899Monthly South Dakotan I. 196 [He] found in a water hole a gunny sack in which was a gold brick.
2. A brick that appears to be made of gold; hence, something having only a surface appearance of value; a fraud; esp. in phr. to sell (someone) a gold brick, to swindle. Also attrib. slang (orig. U.S.).
1881National Police Gaz. (U.S.) 24 Dec. 10/2 (heading) The Gold Brick Trick. Ibid., The gold brick swindle is an old one but it crops up constantly... The bar, or brick as it is called,..is really of base metal. One corner, however, is of gold. 1887Chambers's Jrnl. 1 Oct. 637/1 A ‘gold-brick swindler’. 1889Kansas Times & Star 30 Nov., What's new down at the old union depot shack? Any eruptions, gold bricks being sold or important arrivals? 1901S. E. White Westerners xiii. 94 Bunco men can clean him out in a gambling joint, but who ever heard of their selling him a gold brick? 1911B. Washington My Larger Educ. 292 In many cases, the diploma that the student carries home at the conclusion of his course is nothing less than a gold brick. 1915Wodehouse Something Fresh vi, Preventing Fate from working off on us any of those gold bricks, coins with strings attached, and unhatched chickens at which Ardent Youth snatches. 1923H. C. Bailey Mr. Fortune's Practice iii. 82 ‘He is said to be negotiating deals in Russian mining properties.’ ‘Sounds like a gold brick.’ 1947Chicago Daily News 16 May 18/5 It used to be the city slicker who sold gold bricks to the hick from the country.
3. A shirker; a lazy person (see also quots.). U.S. slang.
1914Dialect Notes IV. 107 Gold-brick, n., applied to army lieutenants appointed from civil life. ‘The gold-bricks are overbearing.’ 1926L. Nason Chevrons viii. 275, I think you're a goldbrick... You don't look as if you were wounded the slightest bit. 1929Papers Mich. Acad. Sci. X. 296/2 Gold brick (Am.), I, an unattractive girl; II, a shirker; one who tries to avoid work, or to get an easy job. 1943Reader's Digest Oct. 97 The wise guy always complains when there is work to do. Sometimes [in the army] he is called a Gold Brick. 1958J. Steinbeck Once there was War (1959) p. xviii, In the ranks, billeted with the stinking, cheating, foul-mouthed goldbricks, there were true heroes.
Hence gold-brick v., (a) trans. to cheat, swindle, defraud; (b) intr. to shirk, to have an easy time; gold-bricker, (a) a shirker; (b) a swindler; gold-bricking vbl. n. and ppl. a. slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.).
1902H. L. Wilson Spenders xxviii. 328 He'll be gold⁓bricked if he wears 'em [sc. his whiskers] scrambled that way around this place. 1914Munsey's Mag. Jan. 738/1 Well, look out they don't gold-brick you, sonny. 1926L. Nason Chevrons ii. 39 You were somewhere in hospital goldbricking your time away. 1928J. B. Wharton Squad vi. 208 If there's any one here sick enough to stay, I'll see the Lieutenant... But no gold brickin' now, mind! 1932Blue Valley Farmer (Okla. City) 4 Feb. 8/4 No country worth fighting for was ever built on slacker's devotion or gold-bricker's patriotism. 1937Amer. Speech XII. 74/2 Gold bricker, duty-shunner, lazy soldier or enrollee. 1952M. McCarthy Groves of Academe (1953) iv. 67 Students with applied art or science majors tended to gold-brick on their reading courses. 1958J. K. Galbraith Affluent Society vii. 63 The typical business executive..would endanger his chance for advancement if he were suspected of goldbricking because of his resentment over his taxes. Ibid. viii. 91 We have feather-bedding unions and gold-bricking workmen and slothful supernumeraries everywhere. 1968Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 18 May 3/7 As in any large outfit, there is obvious goldbricking. |