Dictionary

goldie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From gold + -ie.

Meanings

1. Something which is golden in color.
   • You'd expect the rainbows and possibly the browns, but not the blues and the goldies, which can look truly spectacular. 2008, Where to Fly Fish in Britain and Ireland, page 84:
   • We began by experimenting in the Greyston kitchen during the night. We made brownies, goldies, coffee cakes […] 2010, Bernard Glassman, Rick Fields, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons, →ISBN:
   • The coupons were called greenies, brownies, and goldies. A bicycle could be gotten for 500 goldies. Neither Ray nor I ever acquired a bicycle. But I accumulated a cigar box full of greenies, brownies and a few goldies. 2009, Charles R. Twyman, Daddy, There's a Light in the Sky: An Illumination of Life Stories, →ISBN:
2. (UK) Something which is golden in color. ▸ The golden eagle.
   • […] the golden eagle is the champion predator. And the most handsome, according to ornithologists, who affectionately call their subjects "goldies". 2004, McSweeney's, number 14, page 124:
   • Young "baldies" look just like "goldies" and are often shot by mistake. 1958, The A-V., volumes 66-70:
   • Golden eagles took up old eyries on Hebridean sea cliffs only after the white-tailed sea eagle became extinct. Goldies may hunt seabirds but never fish, and they always resort to flying inland for rabbits or hares as preferred prey. 2009, John A. Love, A natural history of St. Kilda:
3. (UK) Something which is golden in color. ▸ The golden plover.
   • Both grey and golden had the folk name "whistling plover" in Britain, but you know from the habitat that Burns must have had the goldie in mind in his line, The deep-toned plover gray, wild whistling on the hill 2009, Jeremy Mynott, Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience:
   • “Each time the golden plover moved, its dunlin attendant followed, but when the goldie flew off to land on a wooden post, it triggered a bizarre cameo. 2005, Mark Cocker, Richard Mabey, Birds Britannica:
   • Dunlins, 'the plover's page', lay their eggs in wetter flows, usually those having a complex of small pools; we often watched the dunlins following the goldies. 2010, Desmond Nethersole-Thompson, Waders: their Breeding, Haunts and Watchers, page 107:
4. Something which is golden in color. ▸ The goldfinch.
   • I have tried Inga seed for canaries and goldfinches for three or four months, and can speak well of it. My birds, goldies especially, are very fond of it; these will pick it out and leave the canary seed, which they scarcely touch now. 1882, William Thomas Greene, editor, Notes on cage birds:
   • Mr. Peter Scott, Lauder, related that Goldfinches were common in Lauderdale about forty-five years ago, and that their nests were sometimes found about that time in the grounds of Thirlestane Castle. The rocky deans near the sea-coast at Lamberton are also said to have been frequented by "Goldies" in former times, and they were likewise found about Fairneyside. 1889, George Muirhead, The Birds of Berwickshire, page 149:
   • I'm not trying to defend house finches—I'm wooed by goldies' looks like every other feeder—and I certainly think that house finches eat far more seed than they deserve. 2014, Bill Adler, Outwitting Squirrels, page 34:
5. (informal) Something which is golden in color. ▸ A goldfish.
   • Outdoor ponds provide the perfect environment for goldies and Koi. 1999, Sutterkid, “fish”, in comp.bbs.tbbs (Usenet):
6. (informal) Something which is golden in color. ▸ A Golden Retriever.
   • Incredibly, the reactions of the dogs differed between the instances. […] "It's the pursed lips that do it for me," said another comment: "My goldie used to do the same." 2022 July 5, Alice Gibbs, “Golden Retriever's Reaction to Missing Snack Time Delights Internet”, in Newsweek:

Forms

Deriveds

sea goldie

Relateds

gilder · golden oldie · gilt · guilder · oldie but goldie · gilding · golding