having a fantastically complicated, improvised appearance.
a Rube Goldberg arrangement of flasks and test tubes.
deviously complex and impractical.
a Rube Goldberg scheme for reducing taxes.
A “Rube Goldberg contraption” is a machine with many apparently extraneous parts, which appears to have been designed by patchwork.
1955–60; after Rube ( Reuben ) Goldberg
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This, of course, is an example of a Rube Goldberg machine—an overly complex mechanism that performs a simple task.
From Barron's • May 14, 2026
After that fall, each bout of sickness or medical procedure causes a cruel chain reaction, like a diabolical Rube Goldberg machine.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 10, 2025
When ARID1A is mutated, a microscopic chain of events analogous to a Rube Goldberg machine is set off in the cancer cell.
From Science Daily • May 15, 2024
For more than a half century, through live performances seemingly born of the marriage of Mozart, the Marx Brothers and Rube Goldberg; prizewinning recordings; and even a book-length biography, P.D.Q.
From New York Times • Jan. 17, 2024
A Republican senator from Pennsylvania called the Mercury capsule-Atlas rocket pairing “a Rube Goldberg device on top of a plumber’s nightmare.”
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
