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
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.
See Examples For:
Born Bernice Utal on Dec. 22, 1928, in East Orange, N.J., to parents Rudolph Utal and Elsie Elizabeth Rubin, the actor had a lifelong passion for entertainment during the golden age of Hollywood cinema.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
Hopefully, I don’t sound as naive as those early internet optimists, who thought new shifts would usher in a golden age of humanity.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
The palaces of Genoa’s 16th and 17th century golden age—which now have Unesco World Heritage status—can be hard to recognize from the outside.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
A goat herder from a remote area of western Kenya has told the BBC his discovery of a golden nugget has sparked a gold rush, overwhelming his small village over the last few weeks.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
She and I were inseparable—literally—her golden brown beachy waves interwoven with my dark brown hair in one shared, thick braid.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
The film was a big success at the box office and the song won several awards, including a Golden Globe.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Golden Cougars come out with impressive performance to rout Eagle Rock.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
In a recent game at Golden State, her dribble behind the back to create space for a 3-pointer left a Valkyries player staggering backward and grabbing her ankles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
So far SpaceX is in line for more than $8 billion in Golden Dome-related contracts—at least a third of the total budgeted for the project so far.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Finally, here’s a new song for your playlist: "Golden," by Jill Scott.
From "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks
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.
