gold foil
1
3.9
- noun
- /ɡoʊld fɔɪl/
- Specialized
:
hoja de oro
- In ancient times, gold foil was often applied to statues and artifacts for decorative purposes.
- wrapped in gold foil
- gold foil box
So he took this, took these alpha particles and a very, very thin gold foil.
- So he took this, took these alpha particles and a very, very thin gold foil.
- Woody Harrelson was giving gold like Goldfinger gold foil joints the night of your show in DC.
Examples
-
This gold foil is really thin and light, easy to tear.
Blog text (11) -
He gave me a package wrapped in bright gold foil.
Fiction book (2002) -
There were also weapons, mostly flint, jade, and copper axes, some of which were covered in gold foil.
Academic text (2011) -
Little rectangles of gold foil were already shimmering in the torchlight, held over the heads of the crowd by eager hands.
Fiction book (1995) -
The interaction of these ultrarelativistic energy ions in gold foils illuminated, at extraordinarily high-collision energy, atomic physics aspects such as ion charge state change and electron-positron pair production.
Academic text (2002) -
The artist used gold foil to add a shimmering effect to the painting.
-
For the wedding invitations, they chose a design printed with gold foil letters.
Synonyms
8
8.0
A thin layer of gold put on a surface to make it shine
6
4.3
Very thin sheets of gold used to decorate objects and food
1
7.0
A thin layer of gold or metal that looks like gold on a surface for decoration
How Thin
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'extremely thin sheets of gold' is directly and compositionally derived from 'gold' (a precious metal) + 'foil' (a very thin metal sheet); a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the compound meaning. This noun–noun combination follows a regular, cross-linguistic compounding pattern, making the expression predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Gold foil comes from the practice of hammering real gold into very thin foil sheets that look like 'thin metal paper' you can use to cover objects. Because people used these delicate sheets to decorate frames, art, or even to cover teeth and use in experiments, the phrase now means those very thin sheets of gold used for decoration and science.