Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Gold beaten into extremely thin sheets used especially for gilding.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Gold beaten into the form of very thin leaf or sheet. An ounce of gold may be beaten out so as to cover 200 square feet or more, the leaf used for gilding being often much thinner than this. The gold is rolled into a ribbon not thicker than ordinary paper; it is then cut into pieces an inch square, piled up with much larger square pieces ot gold-beaters' skin, and beaten until it reaches their size. It is then cut up again, interleaved with fresh pieces of the skin, and again beaten, and so on. A book of gold-leaf measures 3¾ by 3½ and a leaf of gold 3⅜ by 3⅜ inches. There are 25 leaves in a book, and 20 books In a pack.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. gold beaten into a film of extreme thinness, and used for gilding, etc. It is much thinner than gold foil.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a very thin form of gold foil
Examples
“The barge was wide and comfortably appointed with luxurious touches: a fully staffed kitchen, a dining room with goblets and gold plates, beds with gold leaf on the headboards, privy stool-closets hung with crimson velvet and perfumed with fresh irises in a silver vase fastened to the wall.”
“The ballroom at Dunbarton Hall, though rather small in comparison with some of the grander ballrooms that entertained the ton during the Season in London, was nevertheless splendidly decorated with gold leaf and paintings and chandeliers, and its size had been artfully enhanced by a coved ceiling and by huge mirrors along one long wall.”
“For gold leaf dissolved by aqua regia gives no heat to the touch; no more does lead dissolved in aqua fortis; neither again does quicksilver”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gold leaf’.
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EN - coloured collocations
The bad news: There are possibly tens of thousands of colour collocations in English. The good news is that the pictures retrieved by Wordnik from flickr will probably match the terms this time.
black currant, black eye, black pudding, blue baby, Blue Beard, blue bell, blue berry, blue blood, Blue Book, blue bottle, blue cheese, blue chip and 280 more...
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art & art historical
chiaroscuro, architrave, column, capital, corinthian, dorice, entablature, frieze, ionic, sketch, abecedarian, abstraction and 124 more...
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The Bindery
A list of bookbinding terms and phrases, for assembling new or repairing/reassembling old books.
perfect binding, animal glue, spine, textblock, polyvinyl acetate, double-fan adhesi..., board, backing, rounding, bone, book cloth, pasteboard and 270 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (G)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
gable, gaia, gala, galaxy, gallows, gambol, garden, garland, garnet, gauntlet, gazebo, gazelle and 105 more...
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Red Seas Under Red Skies
Words and phrase from Scott Lynch's book, Red Seas Under Red Skies.
legate, pugnacity, weevil, steady as a dry-d..., chit, sans, apprise, forfend, ken, expatriate, enclave, scrubs and 220 more...
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Great Color Names
obsidian, vermillion, cardinal, ultramarine, chartreuse, puce, taupe, sable, slate, cerise, garnet, mauve and 88 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gold leaf.
treeseed Gold leaf is gold that is beaten into extremely thin sheets. The thin gold sheets are commonly used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. 23-karat gold is the most commonly used.
In some cultures gold (and silver) leaf is considered non-toxic when labeled as food-grade and so can be used to decorate food or drink. Such a leaf is called Vark. They can be often found on a number of desserts including chocolates and mithai.
_Wikipedia Feb 23, 2008