Definition
nounA heavy yellow elemental metal of great value, with atomic number 79 and symbol Au.
nounA coin or coinage made of this material, or supposedly so.
Sentence Examples
The gold coin was much more valuable than was supposed.
There is a gold coin.
The company name was spelled out in gold letters.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰĺ̥h₃-to-mder.
Proto-Germanic *gulþą
Proto-West Germanic *golþ
Old English gold
Middle English gold
English gold
From Middle English gold, from Old English gold (“gold”), from Proto-West Germanic *golþ, from Proto-Germanic *gulþą (“gold”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰl̥h₃tóm (“gold”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- (“green, yellow”). Related to yellow; see there for more. Germanic cognates include Scots gowd, Dutch goud, German Gold, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk gull, Danish and Swedish guld, and cognates from other Indo-European languages include Latvian zelts, Russian зо́лото (zóloto), Persian زرد (zard, “yellow, golden”), Sanskrit हिरण्य (hiraṇya).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"You like to hear about gold.
A king filled his prison room
As full as the room could hold
To the top of his reach on the wall
With every known shape of the stuff.
’Twas to buy himself off his doom."
— 1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:
"Now obviously this meant that I went over my allotted time, but the theatre management didn't mind because I was giving them comedy gold and that's what gets bums on seats."
— 2010, Paul Hendy, Who Killed Simon Peters?:
"Marge Quincey didn't deserve a husband like his dad. He was pure gold, and she wasn't worth a light beside him."
— 2012, Victor Pemberton, Leo's Girl:
"Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.[…]A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes."
— 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
"Soon after the arrival of Mrs. Campbell, dinner was announced by Abboye. He came into the drawing room resplendent in his gold-and-white turban. […] His cummerbund matched the turban in gold lines."
— 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings: