Rube Goldberg

Also Rube Goldbergian.

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.

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of Goldberg, Rube¹

1955–60; after Rube ( Reuben ) Goldberg

Example Sentences

After that fall, each bout of sickness or medical procedure causes a cruel chain reaction, like a diabolical Rube Goldberg machine.

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Watching her execute another step in the scavenger hunt she’s devised for him is like seeing “The Rules” reimagined by Rube Goldberg.

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He is also a massive global embarrassment, the glaring flaw that proves the entire Rube Goldberg machine is no longer working.

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Come for the Rube Goldberg machines, leave feeling like a rube.

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That frenzy to create a "mini-primary" or some kind of Rube Goldberg mechanism to pick a candidate was largely based on that knee-jerk opinion.

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