golden
adjective
golden
1 American
[gohl-duhn]
/ ˈgoʊl dən /
adjective
-
bright, metallic, or lustrous like gold; of the color of gold; yellow.
golden hair.
-
made or consisting of gold.
golden earrings.
-
exceptionally valuable, advantageous, or fine.
a golden opportunity.
-
having glowing vitality; radiant.
golden youth.
-
full of happiness, prosperity, or vigor.
golden hours;
a golden era of exploration.
-
highly talented and favored; destined for success.
television's golden boy.
-
richly soft and smooth.
a golden voice.
-
indicating the fiftieth event of a series.
a golden wedding anniversary.
Golden
2
American
[gohl-duhn]
/ ˈgoʊl dən /
noun
golden
British
/ ˈɡəʊldən /
adjective
-
of the yellowish or brownish-yellow metallic colour of gold
golden hair
-
made from or largely consisting of gold
a golden statue
-
happy or prosperous
golden days
-
(sometimes capital) (of anniversaries) the 50th in a series
Golden Jubilee
golden wedding
-
informal very successful or destined for success
the golden girl of tennis
-
extremely valuable or advantageous
a golden opportunity
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of golden
Explanation
Something that's golden is made out of gold. A queen in a fairy tale might wear an elaborate golden crown. Aside from golden ornaments and jewelry, things the color of gold are also golden, like a boy's golden hair or golden fields of wheat. If you talk about a golden time or a golden opportunity, you mean something marked by luck, peace, and happiness. In Old English, it was common to add the suffix -en to mean "made of," but golden is one of just a few of these words in modern English (including wooden and waxen).
Vocabulary lists containing golden
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -en
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wearing a show-stopping black suit with golden flowers, Henry rushed to the stage as the star-studded crowd leapt to its feet to deliver a rousing standing ovation.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026
Applicants for so-called golden visas in Europe may need to make nonrefundable investments of between $170,000 and $900,000 in projects deemed to be of national interest such as local company shares or one-off government contributions.
From Barron's • Jun. 7, 2026
Three men who stole a 2,500-year-old Romanian golden helmet from a Dutch museum have each been sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
From BBC • Jun. 5, 2026
“Black milk of dawn,” “your golden hair Margarete,” “your ashen hair Shulamit”: the poem sets German culture and Jewish annihilation to a cadence so memorable that its memorability becomes part of its danger.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
To his relief, the golden arrows beneath his feet faded.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
