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Synonyms

golden goose

American  

noun

  1. a legendary goose that laid one golden egg a day and was killed by its impatient owner, who wanted all the gold immediately.

golden goose British  

noun

  1. a goose in folklore that laid a golden egg a day until its greedy owner killed it in an attempt to get all the gold at once

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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Appeared in the March 28, 2026, print edition as 'California’s Golden Goose Is Already Flying the Coop'.

From The Wall Street Journal

Its portfolio companies have included the luxury sneaker-maker Golden Goose, SpaceX, “Fortnite” videogame developer Epic Games and TikTok parent ByteDance, according to a fundraising document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

From The Wall Street Journal

“The problem is you’re trying to grab a golden egg and you’re killing the golden goose. It’s counterproductive.”

From Barron's

It was a terrible time for the Ivy League’s golden goose to stop laying eggs.

From The Wall Street Journal

But OpenAI’s golden goose is not selling fancy coding software to businesses.

From Slate

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.