Eggcorn Forum

Pinchbeck is a kind of fake gold, a brass alloyed from a lot of copper and a little zinc. It was named after a London watchmaker, Christopher Pinchbeck (d. 1732). Whatever Mr. Pinchbeck earned in profits he lost in reputation – his surname became synonymous in the mid nineteenth century with something counterfeit, bogus. This figurative meaning of “pinchbeck” retained its currency in English for about a century. Since the early 1900s both the literal and figurative uses of the term have experienced a precipitous decline in popularity.

In the years of its currency “pinchbeck” would occasionally transform itself into “pinchbeak.” Certain idiomatic uses of “pinch” – pinch and scrape, pinch of salt, feeling pinched – may have suggested to speakers an association with the outcome of acquiring counterfeit goods. Reading the semantics of “pinch” into the first syllable of Pinchbeck’s name – an Aunty Lehman – encouraged speakers to go whole hog (bird) and change the obscure “beck” into the more pinch-friendly “beak.”

When the word “pinchbeck” was loaned to Continental languages in the nineteenth century, the “pinchbeak” error was sometimes brought over. We can see this move in the 1905 French text Le Bulletin de l’art ancien et moderne. Mr. Pinchbeck’s metal is described as

pinchebec (pinchbeak)”

German texts from the nineteenth century employed both “pinchbeck” and “pinchbeak.” Here’s a translated entry from German conversational dictionary of the 1880s:

Pinchbeak, (pronounced “pintschbik”), named after its discoverer, an English inventor, an alloy [made] from 128 parts copper, 7 parts brass, 7 parts zinc or from 2 parts copper and 1 part brass, is highly malleable, a darkish gold, slow to oxidize.

I found three native examples of “pinchbeck” on the web, two from the nineteenth century, one from a twentieth century Commonwealth source:

A nineteenth century British novel: “But a woman like yourself can wear any pinchbeak pearls with impunity because people assume that her pearls are genuine.”

Ferguson’s Anecdotal Guide to Mexico (1876): “The choir is surrounded by a balustrade of metal called tumbago ( pinchbeak ).”

An Indian author refers to an Indian politician as a “ pinch-beak Napoleon” (i.e, a fake Napoleon) in a 1976 book