gold

Etymology 1

From Middle English gold, from Old English gold (“gold”), from Proto-West Germanic *golþ, from Proto-Germanic *gulþą (“gold”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰl̥tóm (“gold”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- (“yellow; gleam; to shine”). Related to yellow; see there for more. Germanic cognates include Dutch goud, German Gold, Norwegian gull, Swedish guld, and cognates from other Indo-European languages are Latvian zelts, Russian зо́лото (zóloto), Persian زرد (zard, “yellow, golden”), Sanskrit हिरण्य (hiraṇya).

noun

1. (uncountable) A heavy yellow elemental metal of great value, with atomic number 79 and symbol Au.
2. (countable or uncountable) A coin or coinage made of this material, or supposedly so.
   ...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.[…] 2020-05-15, Robert Frost, Delphi Complete Works of Robert Frost (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series), Delphi Classics, →OCLC
   The pirates were searching for gold.
3. (uncountable) A deep yellow colour, resembling the metal gold.
   gold:
   metallic 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. (figurative) 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. 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
7. (slang, in the plural) A grill (jewellery worn on front teeth) made of gold.

adj

1. Made of gold.
   a gold chain
2. 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. 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings
   Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess
3. (of commercial services) Premium, superior.
4. Of a musical recording: having sold 500,000 copies.
   Coordinate term: platinum
   The album went gold, then platinum, thanks to a second hit single, "It's A Miracle". 2000, Billboard, volume 112, number 20, page 52
5. (academia) 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

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. 2010, Tanuja Desai Hidier, Born Confused
   You are the sun at Noon, that golds the barley, and pulls the bee to the ling on the moor. 2011, Harry Nicholson, Tom Fleck, page 250
   Worked wonders, knowing a thing like that. Golded up your hair, even, for all your record said indeterminate. Golded up the whole world, really. 2011, D G Compton, A Usual Lunacy
   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. 2011, Robert M. Ellis, “Pokhara Lake”, in North Cape: Selected Poems of a Poet Turned Philosopher, page 21
   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. 2021, Edward Elmer Smith, The Imperial Stars

Etymology 2

From gold master, a copy of the code certified as being ready for release.

adj

1. (programming, of software) 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. 2004 November, “Half-Life 2 goes gold”, in HWM, page 10
   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. 2011, Jordan Gray, Unearthed, page 6
   I had coded guilds into M59 over the weekend, shortly before we were supposed to go gold. 2011, Jessica Mulligan, Bridgette Patrovsky, quoting Damion Schubert, Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide, page 221

adv

1. of or referring to a gold version of something