gold plate
noun
tableware or containers made of gold.
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gold plate
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gold-plate
gold-plateverb (used with object)to coat (base metal) with gold, especially by electroplating.
gold plate
1 Americannoun
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gold plates
plural
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tableware or containers made of gold.
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a plating, especially electroplating, of gold.
gold-plate
2
American
[gohld-pleyt]
/ ˈgoʊldˈpleɪt /
verb (used with object)
gold-plated,
gold-plating
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to coat (base metal) with gold, especially by electroplating.
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to incorporate costly features or refinements into (something) unnecessarily.
The engineers were accused of gold-plating the construction project.
gold plate
1
British
noun
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a thin coating of gold, usually produced by electroplating
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vessels or utensils made of gold
gold-plate
2
British
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
That set off a fresh attempt to gold plate banking standards for the second time in a generation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 22, 2026
Fountain, ballpoint and rollerball pens are available — finished in 24-carat gold plate, rhodium, titanium, sterling silver and gunmetal.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 13, 2023
Really, the only thing the pickers were interested in was costume jewelry, hoping, I suppose, that accidentally mixed in among the cheap paste jewels and gold plate were real Tiffany and Cartier baubles.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 17, 2017
They then told me a story about how it was known for its gold and silver mines, but after the islanders angered Apollo by sending him tribute made from gold plate, he flooded the mines.
From New York Times ● Jul. 12, 2017
They were making boudoirs for her, and taking the tapestries out of his bachelor bedroom to go in hers, and polishing the silver, and sending to the nearest neighbours for the loan of gold plate.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
The Dolce Hanoi Golden Lake Hotel had a makeover last year using a tonne of the metal to gold-plate everything from bath tubs to toilets, all housed behind a gold exterior.
From Reuters ● Dec. 10, 2021
“It’s not to gold-plate it,” Mr. Schumer said.
From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2021
On her graduation day, Hayley’s parents presented her with a leather and gold-plate bracelet, etched with Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
From Slate ● Apr. 24, 2016
It meant the loss of one of his favourite lines: "I've got so much gold I gold-plate my gold" but he maintains he is happy with how the music integrates with the action.
From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2012
I don’t mean furniture, or silver, or even gold-plate, or works of art, for it is full of the most magnificent old things that you can imagine.
From The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker
The gold-plated figure she’d won for “Fantastic Beasts” was warped and blackened by heat, its surface blistered and twisted like something pulled from a furnace.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2026
Although the term is clinically obsolete, examples of male peacocking are as close as the nearest bejeweled Patek Philippe, sterling-silver rodeo belt buckle or jumped-up, gold-plated pickup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
In 2003, to mark his five decades as a radio host, his employer at the time 2UE gave him a gold-plated microphone, which was stolen several years later.
From BBC ● Nov. 9, 2025
But as he arrives back in Washington, the gold-plated receptions abroad are giving way to a shuttered government and deepening voter anxiety about the economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
He watched her face closely as she took in the nearly eight-foot-tall, gold-plated statue in the corner.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
These include industrial waste from microchip manufacturing or from gold-plating processes.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 29, 2024
But that’s before a trio of late stories achieve an alchemical feat, gold-plating the collection’s themes.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2018
They were presented with issues which farmers believed were holding back the industry in Northern Ireland, including the "gold-plating" of regulations by officials and problems obtaining planning permission because of ammonia concerns.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2018
At Chancery and with the Dedlocks, he lays on the pomp and circumstance as if taking the English language and gold-plating it.
From Time ● Feb. 7, 2012
During gold-plating there is a considerable advantage in keeping the electrodes moving or the solution stirred.
From On Laboratory Arts by Richard Threlfall
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.
