Pinchʹbeck

So called from Christopher Pinchbeck, a musical-clock maker, of Fleet Street. (Died 1732.) The word is used for Brummagem gold; and the metal is a compound of copper, zinc, and tin.

“Where, in these pinchbeck days, can we hope to find the old agricultural virtue in all its purity?”—Anthony Trollope: Framley Parsonage.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.