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Gold fever   /goʊld fˈivər/   Listen
noun
Gold  n.  
1.
(Chem.) A metallic element of atomic number 79, 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 (melting point 1064.4° C), moisture, and most corrosive agents, and therefore well suited for its use in coin and jewelry. Symbol Au (Aurum). Atomic weight 196.97. 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 (gold quartz), 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. (See Carat.) 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."
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.
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 (Zool.), any small gold-colored beetle of the family Chrysomelidae; called also golden beetle.
Gold blocking, printing with gold leaf, as upon a book cover, by means of an engraved block.
Gold cloth. See Cloth of gold, under Cloth.
Gold Coast, a part of the coast of Guinea, in West Africa.
Gold cradle. (Mining) 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)
A buyer of old gold or jewelry.
(b)
A goldsmith's apprentice.
(c)
An itinerant jeweler. "I know him not: he looks like a gold-end man."
Gold fever, a popular mania for gold hunting.
Gold field, a region in which are deposits of gold.
Gold finder.
(a)
One who finds gold.
(b)
One who empties privies. (Obs. & Low)
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 Gold knoppes (Bot.), 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 (Mining), 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 (above).
Gold nugget, a lump of gold as found in gold mining or digging; called also a pepito.
Gold paint. See Gold shell.
Gold pheasant, or Golden pheasant. (Zool.) See under Pheasant.
Gold plate, a general name for vessels, dishes, cups, spoons, etc., made of gold.
Gold of pleasure. (Bot.) A plant of the genus Camelina, bearing yellow flowers. C. sativa is sometimes cultivated for the oil of its seeds.
Gold shell.
(a)
A composition of powdered gold or gold leaf, ground up with gum water and spread on shells, for artists' use; called also gold paint.
(b)
(Zool.) A bivalve shell (Anomia glabra) 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. (Eng.)
Gold thread.
(a)
A thread formed by twisting flatted gold over a thread of silk, with a wheel and iron bobbins; spun gold.
(b)
(Bot.) A small evergreen plant (Coptis trifolia), 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. (Obs.)
Jeweler's gold, an alloy containing three parts of gold to one of copper.
Mosaic gold. See under Mosaic.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Gold fever" Quotes from Famous Books



... awaken it up and send it forth on a mission of importance. The "boom" began. All thoughts were directed to the land of the Rockies. Pictures of plenty and abundance floated before the vision of many thousands. Homes in the east were abandoned to rush into the wilds of the West. No gold fever of the South was ever more exciting, and to add thereto, they found that the government proposed building a line of railway from end to end of the Dominion. Then the Frazer, Saskatchewan, Red River and ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... confidently expected in a few years. At present the lack of laborers and machinery is a great drawback, but as the country grows older the mining facilities will increase. It is not impossible that a gold fever will sometime arise on the Amoor and extend ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... ago, when the Australian gold fever was hot in the veins of thousands, and fleets of ships were conveying them to that far- off, uncultivated world, a poor old woman landed with the great multitude of rough and reckless men, who were fired ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... gold fever had impelled people on shipboard may be judged by the facts that from the first of January, 1849, five hundred and nine vessels arrived in the harbor of San Francisco; and the number of passengers in the same space of time was eighteen ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the Bight—took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that he'd strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... region had a sense of humour and the fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been misinformed as to the best place to start from. I informed some of them, but found that a person with gold fever is very unreasonable and stubborn. Those that returned this way wore a very dilapidated and sorry appearance." But the Police, I suppose, helped them out of their troubles, for these red-coated giants did not lose their humanitarian disposition even amidst ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... tried my hand at a good many occupations, often for the freak of the thing, but always with a reserve force for doing the right thing at last, and somehow I've mostly made bread and cheese and a little more. The gold fever was over long before I reached Australia, but I had a turn at the cradle and pan for all that, and turned up a pretty good "claim"—enough to take me on my travels afterwards. I've been out prospecting; I've had a turn in the great ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... asked Mormon. There were two red splotches in Miranda's cheeks, a glitter in her eyes that suggested she had not escaped the gold fever. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn


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