1984 vocabulary

Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown; dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil.

Herman Melville. Moby Dick

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His stable services were merely a sinecure, and consisted simply in a daily care and inspection, and directing an under-servant in his duties; for Marie St. Clare declared that she could not have any smell of the horses about him when he came near her,

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin

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they had been pardoned, re-instated in the Party and given posts which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important. All three had written long, abject articles in the Times, analysing the reasons for their defection and promising to make amends.

George Orwell. 1984 (1949)

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There is no such position officially, but it sometimes came into existence through necessity, and was the opposite of a sinecure. It was all work and no advantages.

John Knowles. A Separate Peace, p.92 (1959)

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That, perhaps, it was a little unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered men, doing important services, in London.

Charles Dickens. David Copperfield (1850)

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There is a belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty is the most perfect of sinecures—for the clock of Vondervotteimittis was never yet known to have anything the matter with it.

Edgar Allan Poe. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4: The Devil in the Belfry (1839)

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"Really, Monsieur le Baron, I feel ashamed to accept your money for such a sinecure as this. I will tell the story to my friend Lupin. He will enjoy it immensely."

Maurice Leblanc. The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar

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it requires something more than Brougham’s flippant ipse dixit to convince me that the office of Chancellor is such a sinecure and bagatelle.