goldbrick

The gold brick swindle is an old one but it crops up constantly, states an 1881 National Police Gazette article referring to the con artist's practice of passing off bricks made of base metal as gold. By the time World War I was under way, the word goldbrick was associated with another sort of trickery. The sense of the word meaning "shirker" originated in the slang of the United States Army, where it referred to a soldier who feigned illness or injury in order to get out of work or service. That sense has since expanded in usage to refer to any person who avoids or tries to get out of his or her assignment.