Rube Goldberg
/ˌruːb ˈɡəʊl(d)bəːɡ
/adjective North American
Ingeniously or unnecessarily complicated in design or construction: a Rube Goldberg machine...
- Inside his head, there once was a Rube Goldberg contraption designed to help him play golf.
- Harnessing the energy of some Rube Goldberg perpetual-motion machine, prancing on those fine filly legs like the winner of the strumpet's marathon, Bette uses her body as an inexhaustible source of sight gags.
- She's not a Rube Goldberg machine, but a perpetual-motion one.
Origin
1950s: from the name of Reuben Goldberg (1883–1970), an American cartoonist whose illustrations often depicted devices with such a complicated design.