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Heath Robinson
noun, adjective

- used to describe a machine that is very cleverly made and is complicated in a silly or humorous way, but has no practical use

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ORIGIN

Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator best known for drawings of ridiculously complicated machines for achieving simple objectives. First seen in the dictionary in about 1912, Heath Robinson-ish/esque/like means an "absurdly ingenious and impracticable device".

Heath Robinson's bizarre contraptions consisted of wheels, pulleys, counter-balanced ropes and weights - often powered by steam or musical instruments, or something else truly impractical. They were absurd - sometimes surreal.

His Multi-Movement Tabby Silencer - a device to spray water at noisy cats - comprised an extendable arm and a long stick, a wheel, numerous ropes (tied together in places), two candles, a mirror and a patterned china jug full of water. It took two people to operate, both hanging out of windows operating the machine with earnest intent and serious expressions.

"Your absurd, beautiful drawings... give me a peculiar pleasure of the mind like nothing else in the world."

(science fiction author H.G. Wells in a letter to Heath Robinson in 1914)

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SYNONYMS

contraption, Rube Goldberg machine

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today

"Jim has constructed a really cool HEATH ROBINSON solution, I hope it works."