gold

noun

1. (uncountable)A heavy yellow elemental metal of great value, with atomic number 79 and symbol Au.

   “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.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A coin or coinage made of this material, or supposedly so.

   “The pirates were searching for gold.”

3. (uncountable)A deep yellow colour, resembling the metal gold.
4. (countable)The bullseye of an archery target.

   “Daniel hit the gold to win the contest.”

5. (countable)A gold medal.

   “France has won three golds and five silvers.”

6. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Anything or anyone that is very valuable.

   “That food mixer you gave me is absolute gold, mate!”

   “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.”

   “Marge Quincey didn't deserve a husband like his dad. He was pure gold, and she wasn't worth a light beside him.”

7. (countable, in-plural, slang, uncountable)A grill (jewellery worn on front teeth) made of gold.
8. A member of the Goldi or Nanai people.

symbol

1. ☉ (alchemy)

adj

1. (not-comparable, usually)Made of gold.

   “a gold chain”

   “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.”

2. (not-comparable, usually)Having the colour of gold.

   “gold sticker”

   “gold socks”

   “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.”

   “Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.”

3. (not-comparable, usually)Premium, superior.
4. (not-comparable, usually)Of a musical recording: having sold 500,000 copies.

   “The album went gold, then platinum, thanks to a second hit single, "It's A Miracle".”

5. (not-comparable, usually)Subject to or involving a model of open access in which a published article is immediately available for to read for free with no embargo period.

   “Coordinate term: green”

   “Scholars who make their work green open access rather than gold never pay a fee to do so. Even when they choose the gold route, only 33% of peer-reviewed open access journals charge author-side fees.”

6. (not-comparable)In a finished state, ready for manufacturing.

   “The Company confirmed that Half-Life 2, developed by Valve Software, has gone gold with a planned retail street date of November 16, 2004.”

   “He felt bone-tired and twitchy, the way he did in the final stages of putting a video-game project together, almost ready to go gold and turn a new game loose on the public.”

   “I had coded guilds into M59 over the weekend, shortly before we were supposed to go gold.”

verb

1. To appear or cause to appear golden.

   “I caught sight of something that seemed the nexus of all that glittered, all that golded: like a hallucination in the traffic's rotary heart, a saried creature giddily swirling her own razored rainbow roundabout, mirrored fabric sending light spinning like saberlike amidst the smoking, choking cars.”

   “You are the sun at Noon, that golds the barley, and pulls the bee to the ling on the moor.”

   “Worked wonders, knowing a thing like that. Golded up your hair, even, for all your record said indeterminate. Golded up the whole world, really.”

   “But I work still, a dead, unheeding man across the endless interface: wishing I was the sun who golds the lake or the lake, comprehending sun.”

   “Hair down to my shoulders; waved and liquid-golded. Eyebrows shaved to a different shape and golded. Handle-bar mustache, waxed to points and golded.”

adv

1. (not-comparable)of or referring to a gold version of something

name

1. An English surname originating as an occupation for a goldsmith or a rich man.