Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An alloy of zinc and copper used as imitation gold.
- noun A cheap imitation.
- adjective Made of pinchbeck.
- adjective Imitation; spurious.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An alloy of three or four parts of copper with one of zinc, much used in cheap jewelry.
- Sham; spurious; bogus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An alloy of copper and zinc, resembling gold; a yellow metal, composed of about three ounces of zinc to a pound of copper. It is much used as an imitation of gold in the manufacture of cheap jewelry.
- adjective Made of pinchbeck; sham; cheap; spurious; unreal.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
alloy ofcopper andzinc once used asimitation gold for cheap jewelry. - adjective Made of pinchbeck.
- adjective
Sham ;spurious ,artificial ; being a cheap substitution; only superficially attractive.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective serving as an imitation or substitute
- noun an alloy of copper and zinc that is used in cheap jewelry to imitate gold
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[After Christopher Pinchbeck, (1670?–1732), English watchmaker.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Named after Christopher Pinchbeck, an 18th century London watchmaker who developed the alloy.
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Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
brtom commented on the word pinchbeck
Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token.
Joyce, Ulysses, 10
January 7, 2007
john commented on the word pinchbeck
"After watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck (1670-1732), who invented it.
It's ironic that today his name is a synonym for something counterfeit
but in his time his fame was worldwide, not only as the inventor of
this curious alloy but also as a maker of musical clocks and orreries*.
The composition of this gold-like alloy was a closely-guarded secret
but it didn't prevent others from passing off articles as if made from
this alloy... faking fake gold!"
'Blackpool is more than a tower of lights and a rhinestone mile of slots and seasonal variety acts. It is Lancashire's pinchbeck LA.'
Adam Edwards; Keeping Up And Away From the Neighbours; Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Jul 24, 2004."
- A.W.A.D, November 19, 2007
November 20, 2007
jeffazi commented on the word pinchbeck
adjective: counterfeit or spurious.
November 20, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word pinchbeck
"To be sure there was a golden haze over those times and some of the gold was no doubt false, mere pinchbeck at the best; but even so they had an irreplaceable quality of their own..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 169
February 13, 2008
yarb commented on the word pinchbeck
The Russian Countess gave talks on the prisons of Siberia, wearing the headdress and pinchbeck ornaments of a Slav bride...
- Frank Norris, The Octopus, bk 2, ch. 1
August 19, 2008
qms commented on the word pinchbeck
Be careful of paintings on eBay;
Excitement can bear you away.
Keep bidding in check
And look for pinchbeck.
(That landscape's not really Monet.)
August 16, 2014