gold mine

American  

noun

• gold mines
  plural

1. a mine yielding gold.

2. a source of great wealth or profit, or any desirable thing.

3. a copious source or reserve of something required.

   a gold mine of information about antiques.

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gold mine British  

noun

1. a place where gold ore is mined

2. a source of great wealth, profit, etc

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gold mine Idioms  

1. A rich, plentiful source of wealth or some other desirable thing, as in That business proved to be a gold mine, or She's a gold mine of information about the industry. [First half of 1800s]

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• gold-miner
  noun
• gold-mining
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• gold mines
  plural

Etymology

Origin of gold mine

late Middle English word dating back to 1425–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gold mine

Witnesses described hearing what they said sounded like an explosion at the open-air artisanal gold mine on Wednesday afternoon, moments before the workers below were trapped.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

“The enterprise data is the gold mine, and the tools are just a way to mine the gold.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Army reopened a gold mine in Idaho to access a vital chemical byproduct used in nearly a third of all military ammunition.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

About 27 miles to the south of Tonopah, near the town of Goldfield, a new gold mine is set to open in 2028.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026

This was exactly the kind of gold mine I’d hoped to find in the old ruined house.

From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs