Goldbergian

American  

[gohld-bur-gee-uhn] / goʊldˈbɜr gi ən /

adjective

1. Rube Goldberg.

---

Etymology

Origin of Goldbergian

Goldberg + -ian

Example Sentences

While you have fun, I hurt my back a few weeks ago, so I’m spending my nights creating a Rube Goldbergian bedroom setup to put myself in traction.

From New York Times • Mar. 12, 2016

They’re created with complex engineering, and they’re populated by heroes—whether toys, humans, monsters, or feelings—who are inventors, Rube Goldbergian geniuses, or, as in “Inside Out,” diligent functions of the human brain.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 9, 2015

One of the film’s dystopian curiosities, the Billows Feeding Machine, invented by Mr. J. Widdecombe Billows, has a distinctly Rube Goldbergian quality to it — this is likely no coincidence, as Goldberg and Chaplin were friends.

From The Verge • Apr. 22, 2015

What they came up with was a Rube Goldbergian system that strips out personally identifiable information from the databases at Facebook, Datalogix, and the major retailers while still matching people and their purchases.

From Slate • Mar. 20, 2013

The Bijou offered entertainment of the cigar-box tramp variety, interspersed with trick bicyclists, soubrettes in slightly soiled pink, trained seals, and Family Fours with lumpy legs who tossed each other about and struck Goldbergian attitudes.

From Cheerful—By Request by Ferber, Edna