golden ear
1
8.7
- noun
- Jargon
:
oído musical
- Her golden ear allowed her to distinguish subtle differences in musical tones that others could not hear.
Examples
-
It's the man with the golden ear.
-
Employees known as the golden ear testers listen carefully to assess the sound quality of new audio equipment.
-
Having a golden ear means you can accurately identify notes and chords without any visual aids.
Synonyms
267
2.3
The skill of noticing and understanding sounds like music or speech
1
3.9
A natural ability to recognize and enjoy music
The ability to hear and understand musical sounds like pitch and rhythm
Antonyms
How Accurate
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'golden' as 'excellent/valuable' combined with 'ear' as 'auditory sensitivity' yields 'an excellent ear' for sound, so a learner who knows both words can infer the meaning. Although somewhat domain-specific (audio/music), this follows a standard adjective+noun evaluative pattern and is not idiomatic or metaphorically opaque.
Etymology
Golden ear may come from the image of a very valuable ear, where golden means rare and special. So the term now means someone who can 'hear very small differences in sound', which is why people use it for musicians and sound engineers.