goldbrick

noun

1. Something fraudulent or nonexistent offered for sale; a swindle or con.

   “Experience is the biggest gold brick in the world. All older people have it for sale.”

   “These, as a rule, were not adverse to buying a goldbrick as long as they knew that there was a chance for them to dump it on somebody else afterwards with some profit.”

   “To-day, American attitude toward Europe is comparable to that of the country greenhorn who, having bought a goldbrick on Broadway, now fills the air not merely with the denunciation of the sharpers who tricked his credulity — […]”

   “The average farmer may be less of a victim than some other people by reason of his isolation, conservatism, and hard earned money, but he, too, has too often bought a goldbrick that did not materialize.”

   “[…] that if he bought a goldbrick from Podhoretz for $25,000, he ought to pay me more than the $5,000 a volume that had been agreed on for the pure gold […]”

2. (US, dated, slang)A shirker or malingerer.

   “Mac, there’s not a confounded thing wrong with you. You are an excellent physical specimen and in good health. You’re nothing but a goldbrick. Now, get your butt out of here and don’t ever come back again unless you’re really sick or need an immunization.”

   “Tell me that I’ve been a louse and loafer You won’t get a fight here, no ma’am Say I’m a goldbrick, a goof-off, no good But that couldn’t be all that I am”

3. (US, dated, slang)A swindler.

verb

1. (US, dated, slang)To shirk or malinger.

   “I'd just as soon goldbrick with malaria as with anything else.”

   “He learned to despise the Germans, people he once thought fit to rule the world, but now so craven they ate French dirt for a glass of cheap campagne; he mastered the art of goldbricking. Sitting at his desk, bored and full of hate, he got fat and dreamed of Paris.”

2. (US, dated, slang)To swindle.