gold brick

noun

1. something with only a superficial appearance of value
2. slang.
   an idler or shirker

Example Sentences

Samuel, a nice failed writer and slob, turns his life around one day by stepping in front of a car in “Big Gold Brick.”

From New York Times

The title of this perfectly well-appointed production is apt: “Big Gold Brick” looks all right but it truly just sits there.

From New York Times

This year, the actress has a stacked schedule of movies, including the lead role in the offbeat horror-thriller “Till Death,” out July 2; the crime thriller “Midnight in the Switchgrass,” which also stars her now-boyfriend, actor and musician Machine Gun Kelly, a few weeks later; and Brian Petsos’ forthcoming directorial debut “Big Gold Brick.”

From Washington Post

But even as DelGaudio lays himself bare in his “Amoralman” memoir or in the personal histories featured in “Itself,” which ran on stage in L.A. and off-Broadway for 560 performances, describing his one-man show can be as elusive as the secret to making a gold brick disappear.

From Los Angeles Times

Our second Gilded Age, with its golden pathways across the ether, is a gold brick when it comes to crumbling roads, decaying bridges, rackety public transit, corroding water pipes and collapsing sewers.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• counterfeit
• deception
• fabrication
• forgery
• hoax
• phony
• scam
• sham
• trick