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goldbrick: msg#00028

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: goldbrick

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Is there a "scare" in the word "scarify?" Scare up the answer
to this and other disputes in our Concise Usage Dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?conusg.htm&6
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The Word of the Day for October 29 is:

goldbrick \GOLD-brik\ noun
1 a : a worthless brick that appears to be of gold b : something that
appears to be valuable but is actually worthless
*2 : a person who shirks assigned work

Example sentence:
While the goldbricks in the office were goofing off, Leslie was rushing to
finish the project on time.

Did you know?
"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.







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