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Golden mean   /gˈoʊldən min/   Listen
adjective
Golden  adj.  
1.
Made of gold; consisting of gold.
2.
Having the color of gold; as, the golden grain.
3.
Very precious; highly valuable; excellent; eminently auspicious; as, golden opinions.
Golden age.
(a)
The fabulous age of primeval simplicity and purity of manners in rural employments, followed by the silver age, bronze age, and iron age.
(b)
(Roman Literature) The best part (B. C. 81 A. D. 14) of the classical period of Latinity; the time when Cicero, Caesar, Virgil, etc., wrote. Hence:
(c)
That period in the history of a literature, etc., when it flourishes in its greatest purity or attains its greatest glory; as, the Elizabethan age has been considered the golden age of English literature.
Golden balls, three gilt balls used as a sign of a pawnbroker's office or shop; originally taken from the coat of arms of Lombardy, the first money lenders in London having been Lombards.
Golden bull. See under Bull, an edict.
Golden chain (Bot.), the shrub Cytisus Laburnum, so named from its long clusters of yellow blossoms.
Golden club (Bot.), an aquatic plant (Orontium aquaticum), bearing a thick spike of minute yellow flowers.
Golden cup (Bot.), the buttercup.
Golden eagle (Zool.), a large and powerful eagle (Aquila Chrysaetos) inhabiting Europe, Asia, and North America. It is so called from the brownish yellow tips of the feathers on the head and neck. A dark variety is called the royal eagle; the young in the second year is the ring-tailed eagle.
Golden fleece.
(a)
(Mythol.) The fleece of gold fabled to have been taken from the ram that bore Phryxus through the air to Colchis, and in quest of which Jason undertook the Argonautic expedition.
(b)
(Her.) An order of knighthood instituted in 1429 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy; called also Toison d'Or.
Golden grease, a bribe; a fee. (Slang)
Golden hair (Bot.), a South African shrubby composite plant with golden yellow flowers, the Chrysocoma Coma-aurea.
Golden Horde (Hist.), a tribe of Mongolian Tartars who overran and settled in Southern Russia early in the 18th century.
Golden Legend, a hagiology (the "Aurea Legenda") written by James de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, in the 13th century, translated and printed by Caxton in 1483, and partially paraphrased by Longfellow in a poem thus entitled.
Golden marcasite tin. (Obs.)
Golden mean, the way of wisdom and safety between extremes; sufficiency without excess; moderation. "Angels guard him in the golden mean."
Golden mole (Zool), one of several South African Insectivora of the family Chrysochloridae, resembling moles in form and habits. The fur is tinted with green, purple, and gold.
Golden number (Chronol.), a number showing the year of the lunar or Metonic cycle. It is reckoned from 1 to 19, and is so called from having formerly been written in the calendar in gold.
Golden oriole. (Zool.) See Oriole.
Golden pheasant. See under Pheasant.
Golden pippin, a kind of apple, of a bright yellow color.
Golden plover (Zool.), one of several species of plovers, of the genus Charadrius, esp. the European (Charadrius apricarius, syn. Charadrius pluvialis; called also yellow plover, black-breasted plover, hill plover, and whistling plover. The common American species (Charadrius dominicus) is also called frostbird, and bullhead.
Golden robin. (Zool.) See Baltimore oriole, in Vocab.
Golden rose (R. C. Ch.), a gold or gilded rose blessed by the pope on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and sent to some church or person in recognition of special services rendered to the Holy See.
Golden rule.
(a)
The rule of doing as we would have others do to us. Cf.
(b)
The rule of proportion, or rule of three.
Golden samphire (Bot.), a composite plant (Inula crithmoides), found on the seashore of Europe.
Golden saxifrage (Bot.), a low herb with yellow flowers (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), blossoming in wet places in early spring.
Golden seal (Bot.), a perennial ranunculaceous herb (Hydrastis Canadensis), with a thick knotted rootstock and large rounded leaves.
Golden sulphide of antimony, or Golden sulphuret of antimony (Chem.), the pentasulphide of antimony, a golden or orange yellow powder.
Golden warbler (Zool.), a common American wood warbler (Dendroica aestiva); called also blue-eyed yellow warbler, garden warbler, and summer yellow bird.
Golden wasp (Zool.), a bright-colored hymenopterous insect, of the family Chrysididae. The colors are golden, blue, and green.
Golden wedding. See under Wedding.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Golden mean" Quotes from Famous Books



... this teaching is to be found throughout his work, devoted as it is, by its very nature, to the eccentricities and exaggerations which beset humanity. But if he had been nothing more than a sober propounder of the golden mean he never would have come to greatness. No man realized more clearly the importance of good sense; but he saw farther than that: he looked into the profundities of the soul, and measured those strange ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... pamphlet uniformly couples "ultra slaveholders" and "northern manumissionists" in the same censure. They are the two objectionable extremes; colonizationists and moderate slave-holders being, I suppose, the golden mean. One illustration more of the animus with which he regards a ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... for our natures as a whole; and we know, when we put aside pedantry, that the great middle object in life—the object that lies between religion on one hand, and food and clothing on the other, establishing our average levels of achievement—the excellent golden mean, is, not to be learned, but to be human beings in all the wide and genial meaning of the term. Does the age hinder? Do its many interests distract us when we would plan our discipline, determine our duty, clarify our ideals? It is ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... the strict manners of the man, And this the stubborn course in which they ran; The golden mean unchanging to pursue, Constant to keep the proposed end in view." —Eng. Poets: ib., B. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... much of an extremist one way as Barter is the other. It's you extremists who do all the harm. There's a golden mean, my friend. I agree that something ought to be done. But what you don't see is that laws must suit those they are intended to govern. You're too much in the stars, Vigil. Medicine must be graduated to the patient. Come, man, where's your sense of humour? Imagine ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine family. Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressive respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, my ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the most perfect intimacy but the closest alliance. The former behaviour properly raises our contempt, the latter our disgust. Hyperdulus seems worthy of wearing his lordship's livery; Anaischyntus deserves to be turned out of his service for his impudence. Between these two is that golden mean which declares a man ready to acquiesce in allowing the respect due to a title by the laws and customs of his country, but impatient of any insult, and disdaining to purchase the intimacy with and favour ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... always plain and modest. And thus have we impartially described the internal and external parts of a person, whose death hath been much regretted; a person who had tried the smiles and frowns of time; not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden mean. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... other—that is the grand human danger. Hence the thought of Scylla and Charybdis has passed into the literature of the world, nay into the proverbs of the people, to express the peril of one-sidedness, as well as the inherent dualism in all conduct. Moreover the golden mean is suggested, that principle of action so familiar in later Greek philosophy. Deeper than this golden mean, however, runs the idea here; the dialectic of existence, the twofoldness which must be made one, the higher synthesis over all analysis are dimly intimated ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... just one word! The Slavophils are right; but I always told my husband that one ought never to exaggerate anything! "The golden mean," you know. What is the use of maintaining that the common people are all perfect, when I ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al


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