Word Meanings - GOLD - Book Publishers vocabulary database

A metallic element, constituting the most precious metal used as a common commercial medium of exchange. It has a characteristic yellow color, is one of the heaviest substances known (specific gravity 19.32), is soft, and very malleable and ductile.

Additional info about word: GOLD

A metallic element, constituting the most precious metal used as a common commercial medium of exchange. It has a characteristic yellow color, is one of the heaviest substances known (specific gravity 19.32), is soft, and very malleable and ductile. It is quite unalterable by heat, moisture, and most corrosive agents, and therefore well suited for its use in coin and jewelry. Symbol Au . Atomic weight 196.7. Note: Native gold contains usually eight to ten per cent of silver, but often much more. As the amount of silver increases, the color becomes whiter and the specific gravity lower. Gold is very widely disseminated, as in the sands of many rivers, but in very small quantity. It usually occurs in quartz veins , in slate and metamorphic rocks, or in sand and alluvial soil, resulting from the disintegration of such rocks. It also occurs associated with other metallic substances, as in auriferous pyrites, and is combined with tellurium in the minerals petzite, calaverite, sylvanite, etc. Pure gold is too soft for ordinary use, and is hardened by alloying with silver and copper, the latter giving a characteristic reddish tinge. Gold also finds use in gold foil, in the pigment purple of Cassius, and in the chloride, which is used as a toning agent in photography. 2. Money; riches; wealth. For me, the gold of France did not seduce. Shak. 3. A yellow color, like that of the metal; as, a flower tipped with gold. 4. Figuratively, something precious or pure; as, hearts of gold. Shak. Age of gold. See Golden age, under Golden. -- Dutch gold, Fool's gold, Gold dust, etc. See under Dutch, Dust, etc. -- Gold amalgam, a mineral, found in Columbia and California, composed of gold and mercury. -- Gold beater, one whose occupation is to beat gold into gold leaf. -- Gold beater's skin, the prepared outside membrane of the large intestine of the ox, used for separating the leaves of metal during the process of gold-beating. -- Gold beetle , any small gold-colored beetle of the family Chrysomelidæ; -- called also golden beetle. -- Gold blocking, printing with gold leaf, as upon a book cover, by means of an engraved block. Knight. -- Gold cloth. See Cloth of gold, under Cloth. -- Gold Coast, a part of the coast of Guinea, in West Africa. -- Gold cradle. See Cradle, n., 7. -- Gold diggings, the places, or region, where gold is found by digging in sand and gravel from which it is separated by washing. -- Gold end, a fragment of broken gold or jewelry. -- Gold-end man. A buyer of old gold or jewelry. A goldsmith's apprentice. An itinerant jeweler. "I know him not: he looks like a gold-end man." B. Jonson. -- Gold fever, a popular mania for gold hunting. -- Gold field, a region in which are deposits of gold. -- Gold finder. One who finds gold. One who empties privies. Swift. -- Gold flower, a composite plant with dry and persistent yellow radiating involucral scales, the Helichrysum Stoechas of Southern Europe. There are many South African species of the same genus. -- Gold foil, thin sheets of gold, as used by dentists and others. See Gold leaf. -- Gold knobs or knoppes , buttercups. -- Gold lace, a kind of lace, made of gold thread. -- Gold latten, a thin plate of gold or gilded metal. -- Gold leaf, gold beaten into a film of extreme thinness, and used for gilding, etc. It is much thinner than gold foil. -- Gold lode , a gold vein. -- Gold mine, a place where gold is obtained by mining operations, as distinguished from diggings, where it is extracted by washing. Cf. Gold diggings . -- Gold nugget, a lump of gold as found in gold mining or digging; - - called also a pepito. -- Gold paint. See Gold shell. -- Gold or Golden, pheasant. See under Pheasant. -- Gold plate, a general name for vessels, dishes, cups, spoons, etc., made of gold. flowers. C. sativa is sometimes cultivated for the oil of its seeds. -- Gold shell. A composition of powdered gold or gold leaf, ground up with gum water and spread on shells, for artists' use; -- called also gold paint. A bivalve shell of the Atlantic coast; -- called also jingle shell and silver shell. See Anomia. -- Gold size, a composition used in applying gold leaf. -- Gold solder, a kind of solder, often containing twelve parts of gold, two of silver, and four of copper. -- Gold stick, the colonel of a regiment of English lifeguards, who attends his sovereign on state occasions; -- so called from the gilt rod presented to him by the sovereign when he receives his commission as colonel of the regiment. -- Gold thread. A thread formed by twisting flatted gold over a thread of silk, with a wheel and iron bobbins; spun gold. Ure. A small evergreen plant , so called from its fibrous yellow roots. It is common in marshy places in the United States. -- Gold tissue, a tissue fabric interwoven with gold thread. -- Gold tooling, the fixing of gold leaf by a hot tool upon book covers, or the ornamental impression so made. -- Gold washings, places where gold found in gravel is separated from lighter material by washing. -- Gold worm, a glowworm. -- Jeweler's gold, an alloy containing three parts of gold to one of copper. -- Mosaic gold. See under Mosaic. (more info) Sw. & Dan. guld, Goth. gulp, Russ. & OSlav. zlato; prob. akin to E.

Related words: (words related to GOLD)

• SPECIFICNESS
  The quality or state of being specific.
• COLORMAN
  A vender of paints, etc. Simmonds.
• COMMERCIALLY
  In a commercial manner.
• CHARACTERISTIC
  Pertaining to, or serving to constitute, the character; showing the character, or distinctive qualities or traits, of a person or thing; peculiar; distinctive. Characteristic clearness of temper. Macaulay.
• YELLOW-GOLDS
  A certain plant, probably the yellow oxeye. B. Jonson.
• YELLOWTOP
  A kind of grass, perhaps a species of Agrostis.
• METALOGICAL
  Beyond the scope or province of logic.
• YELLOWFISH
  A rock trout found on the coast of Alaska; -- called also striped fish, and Atka mackerel.
• MALLEABLE
  Capable of being extended or shaped by beating with a hammer, or by the pressure of rollers; -- applied to metals. Malleable iron, iron that is capable of extension or of being shaped under the hammer; decarbonized cast iron. See under Iron. --
• METALLIC
  Of, pertaining to, or characterized by, the essential and implied properties of a metal, as contrasted with a nonmetal or metalloid; basic; antacid; positive. Metallic iron, iron in the state of the metal, as distinquished from its ores, as magnetic
• MALLEABLEIZE
  To make malleable.
• COMMONER
  1. One of the common people; one having no rank of nobility. All below them even their children, were commoners, and in the eye law equal to each other. Hallam. 2. A member of the House of Commons. 3. One who has a joint right in common ground.
• CONSTITUTIONALIST
  One who advocates a constitutional form of government; a constitutionalist.
• ELEMENTAL
  1. Pertaining to the elements, first principles, and primary ingredients, or to the four supposed elements of the material world; as, elemental air. "Elemental strife." Pope. 2. Pertaining to rudiments or first principles; rudimentary; elementary.
• ELEMENT
  1. One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based. 2. One of the ultimate, undecomposable constituents of any kind of matter. Specifically:
• METALLIFORM
  Having the form or structure of a metal.
• COMMERCIAL
  Of or pertaining to commerce; carrying on or occupied with commerce or trade; mercantile; as, commercial advantages; commercial relations. "Princely commercial houses." Macaulay. Commercial college, a school for giving instruction in commercial
• EXCHANGE EDITOR
  An editor who inspects, and culls from, periodicals, or exchanges, for his own publication.
• SPECIFICALLY
  In a specific manner.
• CONSTITUTION
  1. The act or process of constituting; the action of enacting, establishing, or appointing; enactment; establishment; formation. 2. The state of being; that form of being, or structure and connection of parts, which constitutes and characterizes
• UNCOMMON
  Not common; unusual; infrequent; rare; hence, remarkable; strange; as, an uncommon season; an uncommon degree of cold or heat; uncommon courage. Syn. -- Rare; scarce; infrequent; unwonted. -- Un*com"mon*ly, adv. -- Un*com"mon*ness, n.
• CONCOLOR
  Of the same color; of uniform color. "Concolor animals." Sir T. Browne.
• FELLOW-COMMONER
  A student at Cambridge University, England, who commons, or dines, at the Fellow's table.
• INTERCOMMON
  To graze cattle promiscuously in the commons of each other, as the inhabitants of adjoining townships, manors, etc. (more info) 1. To share with others; to participate; especially, to eat at the same table. Bacon.
• REEXCHANGE
  To exchange anew; to reverse .
• BIMETALLIST
  An advocate of bimetallism.
• NONMETAL
  Any one of the set of elements which, as contrasted with the metals, possess, produce, or receive, acid rather than basic properties; a metalloid; as, oxygen, sulphur, and chlorine are nonmetals.