Heath Robinson

plural Heath Robinsons

1. UKattributiveAnything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless.

   Among the many Heath Robinson contraptions he devised were the Light Vessels (the Sun and the Moon) which would ferry the rescued Light-Particles back to their land of origin along the Milky Way.

   1998, Samuel Lieu, Manichaeism in Central Asia and China, →ISBN, page 16

   1 more example

   And that is how we came to mow our lake weed, although we eventually found it easier to tie two ropes, one to each side of the inner tube, and to pull the Heath Robinson contraption back and forwards across the water with Chris and I standing on opposite banks, each holding one of the lines.

   2014, Ivan M. Donaldson, The Truant from Medicine: A Memoir, →ISBN