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Rube Goldberg

adjective

  1. having a fantastically complicated, improvised appearance:

    a Rube Goldberg arrangement of flasks and test tubes.

  2. deviously complex and impractical:

    a Rube Goldberg scheme for reducing taxes.

Goldberg, Rube

  1. A twentieth-century American cartoonist and sculptor. He was famous for his humorous diagrams of incredibly intricate machines designed to carry out simple tasks.

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Notes

A “Rube Goldberg contraption” is a machine with many apparently extraneous parts, which appears to have been designed by patchwork.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Rube Goldberg1

1955–60; after Rube ( Reuben ) Goldberg

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