Gilded

How to spell gilded

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gilded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gilded mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with a thin layer of gold or gold-coloured material, often suggesting showy or superficial splendour.

Gilded in a sentence

• The museum displayed a gilded mirror from the eighteenth century.

• The old hotel lobby kept its gilded ceiling and marble floors.

Where does gilded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb gyldan, meaning 'to cover or overlay with gold', which itself was formed from gold, the same precious metal in Germanic tongues that English still names the same way. The verb gild therefore simply means to coat a surface with a thin layer of gold, and gilded is its past form, used as an adjective to describe anything finished that way. Over the centuries the word grew a figurative life: something gilded came to suggest a shiny, attractive surface that may hide something plainer underneath, an idea captured in Mark Twain's label for the corruption-rich 'Gilded Age'. A useful spelling note is that gild is a close relative of gold itself, so the single l and the absence of any u are easier to remember once you see the family link; do not confuse it with guild, the association of craftsmen, which carries an unrelated u.

How the word is built

• gild (Old English gyldan, to cover with gold)
• -ed (past participle / adjective suffix)