Word of the Day

: September 15, 2007

pinchbeck

noun PINCH-beck

What It Means

1 : an alloy of copper and zinc used especially to imitate gold in jewelry

2 : something counterfeit or spurious

pinchbeck in Context

Danny claims that the word "trousers" comes from the name of "inventor" Jacob Trowser, but that etymology is just a pinchbeck.

Did You Know?

On November 27, 1732, an advertisement ran in a British newspaper announcing that "the toys made of the late ingenious Mr. Pinchbeck's curious metal ... are now sold only by his son. . .." The Mr. Pinchbeck in question was Christopher Pinchbeck, a London watchmaker who invented the alloy that would be posthumously named for him. Although the metal is used as a substitute for gold, the word "pinchbeck," which can also be used as an adjective, didn't acquire its "counterfeit" sense until the 1790s, over 50 years after Pinchbeck's death.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.