An alloy of zinc and copper, used as imitation gold in jewelry.
adjective
Counterfeit or spurious.
[After watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck (1670-1732), who invented it.
It's ironic that today his name is a synonym for something counterfeit
but in his time his fame was worldwide, not only as the inventor of
this curious alloy but also as a maker of musical clocks and orreries*.
The composition of this gold-like alloy was a closely-guarded secret
but it didn't prevent others from passing off articles as if made from
this alloy... faking fake gold!]
*Orrery: http://wordsmith.org/words
Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
