1811 , H. W. Hammond , Style-book of business English, Pomposity of style is confined to sellers of spurious goods, whether gold-bricks, medicines, or scholarships.
1906, Harry Houdini , The Right Way to Do Wrong, A species of swindle that has been perpetrated times without number all over this country is the old gold-brick game.
Verb
1944 , , Minnesota PTA Bulletin - Volume 20, Issue 4, All of this costs money, but if we all determine to put our own shoulder to the wheel instead of seeing how we can gold-brick we can make Democracy work right here in our own state.
1965 , Samuel Feinberg , How Do You Manage? , ... great numbers of “happy employees who are extremely loyal to the organization because they can gold-brick, be apathetic, and be non-involved in worrying about the effectiveness of the company.â€
1966, Paul Goodman , Five years , No; any man is likely to be stronger than any institution—a GI can gold-brick the Pentagon.
